


The Artificial Aegis Project

by rarmaster



Series: YWKON [10]
Category: Tales of Symphonia, Tales of the Abyss, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Video Game), Xenogears
Genre: A Family Can Be Four Scientists And Their Growing Number Of Artificial Blades?, BELIEVE ME I WENT WELL OUT OF MY WAY TO MAKE SURE YOU CAN UNDERSTAND THIS WITH NO SOURCE KNOWLEDGE, Don't Worry It's A Mostly Happy Ending We Just Have To Get There, Gen, Making Friends In Unlikely Places, Making The Best Out Of Shitty Situations, REQUIRES: ZERO KNOWLEDGE OF ANY OF THESE FANDOMS, Reincarnation, Science WLW, XC2 AU, anyway, escaping abuse, features background kranna and a shitton of bg characters, including but not limited to hubert oswell and flynn schifo, standalone prequel, surviving trauma, you thought this was a fic about anna irving? ha ha no its about jade curtiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 99,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24709642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarmaster/pseuds/rarmaster
Summary: On the morality of creating weapons and calling them children.On the yearning for someone you've never met but your soul will always remember.On one man's escape from a relationship that thrives on the threat that his memories can be wiped at any moment.
Relationships: Anna Irving/Miang Hawwa, Galea & Mythra, Jade Curtiss & Citan Uzuki (unwillingly), Jade Curtiss & Mythra, Klaus & Galea, Klaus & Mythra
Series: YWKON [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1222385
Comments: 12
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is a rewrite of Installment 24 of my fic [_25 Lives_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19933051/), which I wanted to revisit to make a better standalone piece. somewhere in the rewrites I got very attached to this cast and this plot and accidentally trippled the scope of it! whoops! come join me on this wild ride
> 
> As I said in the tags, you don't need knowledge of any source material to really understand what's going on here; I've taken care to lay it all out as cleanly as possible. It's a XC2 AU, and while I'm fairly confident you can figure out how the lore works as you go, a rundown of the blade system can be found [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20959580) (I have made considerable changes to the vanilla lore lmao)
> 
> this is a standalone prequel to YWKON - you don't need to have read YWKON to understand this, but there _are_ fun connections.
> 
> Character profiles for this specific fic can be found [here](https://rarsneezes.dreamwidth.org/28879.html). come meet the cast!!
> 
>  **content warnings:** (nonphysical) abuse, child death, graphic depictions of violence. if you need any of the other archive warnings, the spoiler one is [here](https://rarsneezes.dreamwidth.org/38428.html)

“Hi,” Anna says to the first of her three new coworkers, introductions happening over coffee while they wait for their boss to come and tell them what _exactly_ they’ve been hired for, because whatever-it-is is top-secret classified information that they weren’t allowed to know until now, after they got through half a million security checks. Her coworker is a man of average-build, looks like he hasn’t been outside for long in years, has fluffy blonde hair that falls down to his shoulders, and is wearing a dress shirt of the prettiest pale blue Anna’s ever seen. She reaches out to shake his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Dr…?”

He laughs as he shakes her hand. He has a nice laugh, honestly, full of mirth even if it has some edges. “Just Klaus is fine,” he assures her, with a grin that’s a touch cocky. “I don’t see the need to keep up formalities if we’re going to be working together for the next few years.”

He has a point, there.

“Then just Anna’s fine for me, too,” she tells him. She sends a curious look over at the other two women in this room, but they’re still busy talking to each other, so she might as well get to know Klaus a little better while she waits for their conversation to lull so they can do introductions there. “What’d you do to get yourself roped into this mess?” she asks, and he laughs some more at her choice of phrasing.

“I’ve been doing research on how blades interact with and manipulate ether,” Klaus answers, sitting back down in his chair at the table in this conference room. The chair rolls a little backwards underneath his weight, but he doesn’t seem to care. Anna raises her eyebrows, because _that’s_ a neat area of study ( _it’s never occurred to her to ask_ how _blades can manipulate ether when humans can’t, because it’s just a thing they can_ do _and she’s okay with that_ ). Klaus continues, grin cocky: “Among other things, I mean, but I’m almost certain that’s what they took an interest in.” He raises his eyebrows at her, tilts his head to the side. “What about you?”

“Genetics.”

“Really?”

“My college thesis was on blade memories,” Anna answers, taking her own seat again. She reaches over to grab her cup of coffee, takes a sip, instantly regrets it. The coffee’s blacker than is anywhere near reasonable, and there’s no sugar here or anything to fix that. She glares at the coffee, then at Klaus since he’s laughing at her, sets the cup back down, continues talking. “Everyone knows blades forget everything when they die, but everyone also knows that their personality never changes much between the lifetimes they live, so I wanted to see if that kind of thing was stored, like, in their core crystals or what.”

Klaus nods along, a trace of that smirk still on his lips but otherwise looking genuinely interested. “Did you find anything?”

Anna laughs, tucks her brown hair behind her ear—thank Architect it’s grown long enough she can do that again. “Nothing conclusive,” she answers. “At least not on the DNA side of things.”

“You should ask Myyah, then,” says a new voice, and Anna looks up to another of her new coworkers. She has brown skin as dark as Anna’s own and long silver hair that’s tied up in the back, and since she’s sitting on the opposite side of the table it’s hard to tell if that’s a red _dress_ or just a _really nice_ shirt. She nods to the woman sitting next to her. “She probably knows blade DNA better than the Architect himself does.”

The woman in question blushes, faintly, then turns her head away so her purple hair ( _it’s gotta be dyed, because only blades’ hair is ever naturally a color like that, but it’s SUCH a good look_ ) falls into her face to hide it, pressing a knuckle to her mouth to stifle her little laugh. “Oh, I highly doubt that,” she hedges, though underneath the display of embarrassment she sounds _proud._

“Myyah…?” Anna repeats, quietly, squinting at the woman. She looks… familiar? Maybe? Anna swears she knows that face, ( _and_ damn _does her haircut look cute as hell, down to her shoulders in the front but cut to the base of her head in the back like that_ ), but she can’t place _where from._

“Wait a moment,” Klaus says. “Myyah Hawa? _The_ Myyah Hawa?” He looks about ready to leap out of his seat to get closer to her ( _an easy feat, since they are directly across from each other_ ). When she raises her head and nods, Klaus breaks into a grin. “Your research is _incredible,_ ” he gushes. “Without it I think I would still be in the middle of putting mine together.”

“What did you say your research was?” Myyah asks, and as they get to discussing that, the woman with the silver hair clears her throat and turns her attention to Anna.

“I’m Galea, by the way,” she introduces herself.

“Anna,” Anna says, in case Galea missed it. “Why do you think you’re here?”

“Well, I specialize in robotics and artificial intelligence,” Galea answers, taking a sip of her coffee. _Architect,_ how can she _stand_ that stuff? “But they’re probably interested in my degree on blade neuroscience.”

“Oh!” Anna’s mouth says, before her brain can catalogue the fact Galea probably wasn’t done speaking. “I had to look at blade neuroscience, for my thesis. It’s some _incredibly_ dense stuff.”

Galea just shrugs and hums. “I didn’t mind it so much,” she says, brightly. “But there’s a surprising amount of overlap between it and computer programming, so I already knew most of the difficult concepts going in. Also,” and here, she leans conspiratorially towards Anna, voice lowered. Anna leans back, immediately interested. “If you ask me, I think what they really want me here for is the artificial blade I created in grad school.”

Anna splutters. “You did _what_?” she asks, delighted.

“Created an artificial blade,” Galea repeats, her smile smug, self-satisfied. “Klaus helped,” she adds, nodding towards him. He’s still talking avidly with Myyah, but based on the way Myyah meets Anna’s eyes when Anna glances over, Myyah would rather the conversation wrap up already.

“He didn’t mention!” Anna says to Galea, somewhat offended. “The bastard.”

“That’s Klaus for you,” Galea says, rolling her eyes.

“Anyway, hey.” Anna swings towards Galea again, leaning across the table. She has a _lot_ of questions about the artificial blade thing, to be honest, but she figures she better start with: “Where’s your blade now? Are you driving them, or is Klaus?”

“Oh, I am,” Galea replies. Then she laughs and shakes her head. “I wouldn’t dare bring Mythra to a meeting like _this,_ though, she would have died of boredom twenty minutes ago.” Galea shoots a glance at the clock. “And wouldn’t have shut up about how long we’ve been waiting…”

Anna shoots a glance at the clock, too, then hisses. “Yeah, honestly, where _is_ our boss?” she asks. He’s like, fifteen minute late, now?? That bodes well (not). She opens her mouth to say as such to Galea, but doesn’t get the chance, because—

“That’s fascinating, really, and I want to hear about it later, but,” Myyah is saying, and then she’s turning her attention to Anna, and under that laser-focused gaze Anna sits up a little straighter, heart beating a little faster. Myyah scowls for a second, but nods slowly, recognition and fondness lighting in her eyes. “You’re Anna, right?” she asks, eager. “We took classes together in college.”

“Oh,” Anna says, and then, “ _Oh!_ ” as it hits her. “Yeah, that’s right, I remember now!! I… Hm. Did we graduate at the same time? Because…” For the life of her, she cannot remember being there when Myyah presented her thesis, and if Klaus is making such a big deal about it she _should_ remember it, so…

Myyah shakes her head, which is a relief. “Oh, no,” she says, and her smile is _beautiful_. “I was a year behind you.”

That sounds about right, Anna thinks. “Architect, it’s been—how many years?” she asks, trying to do the math, but.

“Far too long, in my opinion,” Myyah says, and honestly she’s right. Anna’s about to comment on that, except then Myyah _also_ takes a drink of coffee and just like Galea, doesn’t even make a face about it.

“ _How_ are you drinking that straight?” Anna demands, curious and disgusted all at once. “This is the worst coffee I’ve ever had.”

Myyah laughs. “Well, of course _you’d_ think so. You like yours with enough cream it doesn’t even taste like coffee anymore, right?” she asks.

Anna blinks. “Yeah,” she says, caught somewhere around startled. Of all the things to… “You remembered?”

“Oh. Oh, yes, I- I have a very good memory,” Myyah says, in a rush. She’s blushing, so Anna raises her eyebrows, wondering if perhaps it’s a _little_ more than that (not that she’d mind, if it was), but before she can press the matter the door _finally_ swings open.

Two men step into the conference room. The first, wearing green, has long black hair tied back, and wears glasses that Anna imagines _can’t_ be doing him any good, given how small they are, and how they hang at the end of his nose so he can look _over_ them. Anna’s pretty sure that’s their boss, Citan Uzuki, because the man standing to his left also stands a step behind him in a way that screams to Anna that he is a blade deferring to his driver. His shirt is high-necked ( _a darker green than Citan’s, edging into blue_ ) hiding where his core crystal would sit on his collarbone, and between the long sleeves and the gloves it’s impossible to see any ether lines etched into his skin, but Anna _thinks_ she can see a faint red glow through the fabric of his high-collar shirt, and his eyes—framed by oval glasses in a way that makes them hard _not_ to notice—are red. Red’s an unusual color for a human, so he probably isn’t one. His hair—brown—falls midway down his back, and he’s smiling faintly.

“Sorry for the delay,” Citan says, and he’s smiling as well, but unlike his blade, Citan’s smile is smug in all the ways that make Anna kind of want to punch him, if only he were not her boss. “Something came up that I had to take care of.”

“You’re finally going to tell us what you gathered us for, then?” Klaus asks, hands behind his head.

“Of course.” Citan steps the rest of the way into the room, while his blade closes the door behind them. Hands resting behind his back, and still smirking that shitty smirk, he continues: “The four of you have been chosen by Tethe’alla for a very important, very secretive research project that I have high hopes in. Myyah, you have worked before with Jade—” at his name, the blade beside Citan lifts his hand in a casual wave, “—on artificial blades.”

Myyah nods, and Anna thinks _holy shit._ Her too?

“As have the two of you, Klaus and Galea,” Citan continues.

“That’s right,” Galea says, and Anna abruptly realizes that she is the only one in this room who _hasn’t_ created an artificial blade, apparently.

“I’m… assuming you want us to create more artificial blades, don’t you?” Galea asks, cautiously.

“More than that, actually,” Citan tells her, his smile sharp. “We’re hoping that the four of you, when you put your heads together, can create an artificial Aegis.”

\- - -

An Aegis—or rather, _the_ Aegises—were the first blades the Architect ever created.

Blades of phenomenal power.

Blades that the Architect used to build the world, then life after.

And when he was done creating, the Architect gifted the Aegises and blades to mankind.

Three hundred years ago, Sylvarant and Tethe’alla went to war.

Three hundred years ago, the Aegises were lost.

Humanity has been chasing their power ever since.

\- - -

Myyah was the first to arrive at the labs they were assigned for this project, which based on the bedrooms and functional kitchen—along with the debrief—it seemed they were to be living in until… the project was over, Myyah assumed. That wasn’t such a bad thing. Myyah’d already been living on this particular base for the past few years, after all ( _which was part of why she got here before everyone else_ ). It made work more convenient and… with a top-secret project such as this, it only made sense to station it in the middle of nowhere, and how could one be expected to commute to the middle of nowhere? If anything, Myyah was grateful they group of them were to have their _own_ labs away from every other snooty scientist and military official on this base. _And_ she appreciated that there were enough rooms for each of them to have one to themselves and one left over.

Or, wait… Galea said she had a blade, didn’t she? Just one for each of them, then.

Myyah’s just finished unloading her things onto her desk—not that she has a lot of things, she despises clutter—when she hears the front doors of the labs open, down the hall, past the kitchen. Myyah moves until she can see the doors, curious…

It’s not Anna.

( _Not that Myyah is surprised by that. During college, Myyah learned that Anna’s punctuality was either unreasonably early or five minutes late, with absolutely no middle ground. And since Anna was not the first one here, it only makes sense that she will be the last._ )

Myyah is somewhat surprised to see that Klaus and Galea have arrived together, though. They’re in the middle of a conversation, a joke or something that Myyah barely pays attention to. Myyah’s attention is fixed instead on the blade that enters right after them, kicking the door shut behind her and plopping the box she was carrying unceremoniously on the ground.

The blade’s young; not young enough to be considered a _child,_ exactly, but she’s certainly younger than the rest of them. The core crystal set in her collarbone is green, shaped like a diamond as all except Aegis core crystals are. It’s displayed proudly by a loose tank top that also leaves her shoulders bare and her ether lines—lines of light etched into her skin, also green—just as proudly on display. Galea and Klaus stop teasing ( _flirting with…?_ ) each other long enough to send her a look, at which the blade raises her eyebrows, pointedly, tossing her waist-length blonde hair back over her shoulder.

“What,” she asks, bluntly. “You only asked me to bring it inside.”

Klaus nods, turning to Galea. “You _did_ only ask her to bring it inside,” he agrees.

“Oh, shut up,” Galea says.

The blade adjusts the backpack she also has slung over her shoulder, then steps around Klaus and Galea with purpose. “I’m gonna go unpack all my stuff, a’ight?” she says, and starts making her way into the rest of the lab before anyone can tell her no. She raises her hand in a brief wave at Myyah as she passes. “Hey.”

“Hello,” Myyah replies, watching her go. Then she turns to Galea. “She’s _artificial?_ ”

Galea nods, then grins. “Her names Mythra, by the way, since she didn’t introduce herself.”

Myyah appreciates knowing, but cares about that not as much as she cares about asking: “And you’re _driving_ her?”

Galea nods again. Klaus bends to move the box Mythra left on the floor from the floor to the kitchen table, as Galea rolls her suitcase out of the immediate pathway. She seems more interested in the contents of the box, but again, Myyah could barely care about those.

“How does that work?” Myyah asks. “I spent— _years_ working on artificial blades,” _with_ government funding, never mind Jade’s help, “and we could never manage to reverse engineer resonance, despite our efforts. The closest we ever got still wasn’t quite right. In the end we had to find a workaround.” Not that the workaround was a _bad_ workaround. Blades channeling ether to their weapons in a driver’s hands worked just as well as channeling ether to their drivers, did it not?

Of course, Myyah knows there are other things to resonance ( _blades channeling either to their drivers enhanced the driver’s speed and strength in battle, just to name one example_ ), but really, what does it matter? If blades could function just fine without resonance, why shouldn’t they?

And in all honesty every single nitpick Citan had about the first run of artificial blades paled in comparison to the fact that Myyah and Jade had _created life from nothing,_ like only the Architect had before _._

“Truthfully, I’m surprised you created blades that were stable _without_ resonance,” Galea counters, abandoning sorting through her box for a moment to look up at her coworker. “I didn’t realize blades _could_ exist like that? Your artificial blades are the first blades I’ve ever heard of that didn’t need drivers. How does that work? When they die and revert to a core crystal… who wakes them back up, if not a driver?”

Myyah shrugs, lightly. “Well I can’t say I killed any of them to find out,” she hedges, “but I _think_ they can just wake up on their own, in theory.”

“Without a driver to wake them…” Galea whispers, like she can barely imagine it. “Isn’t that incredible?”

“Well,” Myyah begins, blushing slightly. She tucks her hair behind her ears, steps a little further into the kitchen so they can hold the conversation better. “I really can’t take all the credit for it. I mostly did the theoreticals. Jade did all of the actual work, seeing as _he_ was the one manipulating the ether…”

Which is part of why Myyah didn’t bother pursuing a more accurate imitation of resonance, if she’s honest. Jade hadn’t really seemed interested, and if Jade didn’t want to waste his energy trying to figure it out, why make him? Again, their proofs of concept were functioning just fine without, and Myyah didn’t see a real necessity for it, so…

“Hey,” Mythra says, poking her head back into the kitchen. “Do any of you _care_ which room I take? Like, they’re all identical, soooo…” She drags the sound out, waiting for an answer.

Klaus and Galea exchange looks.

“So long as it’s not the room with my things in it,” Myyah answers.

“Cool,” Mythra says, and despite the lack of answer from anyone else, ducks back out. Klaus looks for a second like he might want to follow her, but decides against it. Apparently he’s too interested in this conversation.

“It’s all about ether, by the way, and how blades manipulate it,” Klaus says, leaning against the table so he’s all-but sitting on it. “Resonance, I mean. Blades resonate by attuning their own ether to the frequency of their driver’s, then manipulating their own ether and their driver’s in tandem. It’s theorized that the, ahem, _resonating_ frequencies is what’s responsible for a lot of similarities between driver and blade—in personality, mindset, not to mention the emotion bleed…”

“Only theorized, though,” Galea interjects, and Klaus sends her a look, like maybe this is an old argument between them.

“Yes, I suppose no one _has_ been able to pin down why exactly blades and drivers can feel each other’s emotions,” Klaus replies, somewhat sharp, and yeah, Myyah thinks this is definitely an old argument between them. “Which is infuriating, because we managed to create emotion bleed for Mythra _entirely on accident,_ even though we, out of everyone, ever, in the history of science, were in the perfect position to determine _how_ and _why_ it works to begin with.”

“We’ll probably have to ask the Architect on that one,” Galea laughs. “If he exists.”

“Oh, believe me, there are a lot of questions I have for the Architect about why our world works the way it does,” Klaus says, and sighs the sigh of a man who knows that actually speaking with the being that created the world is a fool’s dream.

“You and me both,” Myyah says, with a smile.

“Hey, hot idea,” comes Mythra’s voice, and they all turn to her. She stands in the doorway of the kitchen, hands on her hips, looking quite proud of herself.

Galea raises her eyebrows. “Done unpacking already?”

Mythra scoffs. “You guys talking is _way_ more interesting,” she insists.

“What was your idea?” Myyah asks, because it’s only polite.

“Right,” Mythra says, and she grins. “Why don’t all of you forget about the creating an artificial Aegis thing, and focus your efforts _instead_ on proving whether or not the Architect’s real. And if he _is_ real, then you can just ask him to make another set of Aegises himself. He made the first set, didn’t he?”

Myyah laughs, despite herself, startled and endeared by the notion. Mythra’s grinning like this is largely a joke, and Galea laughs along with her.

Klaus, however, smirks and crosses his arms over his chest. “Unfortunately, if I am known for anything it is my hubris, and I think us _humble_ humans doing something only the Architect’s ever done before is—”

Galea chucks a computer mouse at him.

“— _ow!_ ”

Klaus rubs at his arm, glaring at Galea, who looks about ready to throw something else out of her box at him.

“ _Stop_ with the hubris thing, I swear—” Galea begins.

“It’s sexy!”

“It is _not_ sexy!”

Myyah stifles her laughter in her hand, while Mythra laughs so hard she’s bent over with it. And it’s about then that the door opens, revealing Anna, who blinks a few times, confused, at the scene before her.

“What… did I miss?”

\- - -

“You… may have to walk me through that again,” Anna says, sending a glance at Myyah.

Myyah sighs, but it’s all fondness. She beckons Anna closer, and Anna complies. If they weren’t in separate desk chairs, Anna might honestly be in Myyah’s lap at this point. She settles for resting her chin in Myyah’s shoulder to get a better look at Myyah’s computer screen, which Myyah doesn’t seem to mind at all.

“These, here,” she says, gesturing at the screen of her computer. There's an open text box, which displays two lines of sequenced letters that—to an untrained eye—might look like nonsense. To Anna and Myyah, they read as written forms of DNA strands.

“These are the Aegis strands,” Myyah explains. “They dictate how blades input and output ether.”

“Right,” Anna says. Her eyes kind of skim over them, not sure what exactly there is to take in, specifically. And instead of asking about that, she asks: “Do you have these _memorized_?”

“I have a very good memory,” Myyah says, simply, as if memorizing strings of DNA for fun can simply be ‘good memory’.

Then again, maybe Anna’s not qualified to make that call, seeing as her own memory has always been kind of shitty. And perhaps this contrast is best encapsulated by the fact Myyah’s desk—though it and the wall behind it are both covered with photographs of her family and her coworkers ( _photos she insisted on taking and developing the first day they started working together_ )—is otherwise empty except her mug of coffee and the journal she’s currently working from. It’s much unlike Anna’s desk, which is littered with trash and reminders and at least three to-do lists because she keeps losing them after making them. Comparatively, Myyah definitely looks like she has her life together. Or at least, it looks like Myyah’s better at staying focused. ( _Anna’s always known she’s kind of bad at that too, though._ )

“It’s still incredible,” Anna presses, poking Myyah lightly in the ribs—though not _too_ hard, because if Myyah startles, Anna’s jaw is going to regret it.

“Memorizing something I stared at for hours on end over the course of years and also did my thesis on probably isn’t _that_ incredible,” Myyah hedges.

“Well, _you’re_ incredible,” Anna insists, just to see Myyah blush. She grins and revels in the wake of it, even as Myyah dislodges her so she can’t lean on her shoulder anymore, but that’s okay. “Anyway. What are we doing with these? It’s not as easy as just cloning these strands and getting an Aegis, right?”

“No,” Myyah agrees. “If it were that easy, Jade and I would already have an Aegis to show off.”

“ _Really_?”

“Mmhmm. Artificial blades—they’re just a little bit of genetics, a little bit of ether manipulation, truly not that difficult to create, though we’ve only made a few. Proof of concept, you know.”

“Right,” Anna says, and wonders where the blades are now, wonders who’s driving them, since blades cannot live without being in resonance with a driver. Or are their core crystals just being kept in storage, somewhere? Wait, didn’t Myyah say something about her artificial blades surviving _without_ resonance? Architect, imagine that…

“We’re still trying to figure out what exactly makes an Aegis an Aegis, because it’s certainly not just these two DNA strands,” Myyah continues, steamrolling right over Anna’s thoughts and any potential questions she had. “Which is why you’re here, and Klaus is running the numbers from the ether side of things, and—well Galea probably has the easiest job of all of us, actually, but…”

“Why _am_ I here?” Anna asks. “I mean—Galea’s right, you really _do_ know blade genetics better than the Architect himself does, I think. And all of you have experience creating artificial blades, but I don’t! So why drag me into this?”

Myyah turns to her, looking somehow, for some reason, _hurt_. “Oh, Anna,” she says, gently. “Don’t sell yourself short. Your research on blade memories was incredible.”

“It’s not like I even found anything…” Anna protests, quiet, fiddling with her fingers as she scowls at Myyah’s computer screen.

“On a college student’s budget? With the, what, six months they actually gave you to work on it? Did you really expect to?” Myyah asks, and okay, she has a point there. “I had to go to grad school to even get the space to develop _my_ research…”

“I suppose now that I’m getting paid to do it, maybe I can afford to look other places for answers,” Anna admits. She’d always thought if she’d had more time to study blade neuroscience she might have found something, but had been way too late into her degree to pick up any classes. Maybe she should ask Galea, now…

“Exactly,” Myyah says, spinning her chair to face Anna. “And if we’re looking to find how the Aegises keep their memories regardless of how many times they die and are reborn, then we needed a specialist on blade memories.” Her smile is soft and bright. “Of _course_ I asked for you.”

Oh, this is about more than Anna’s thesis, isn’t it?

“Were there… other options?” she asks, carefully, meeting Myyah’s eyes. They’re _so so so_ purple, the dark kind of purple that’s kind of like the perfect night sky, not that Anna’s much good at poetry. She wants to get lost in them, but the quirk of a smile on Myyah’s lips makes it hard to linger in her eyes, because that smile’s much nicer to look at.

“None that mattered,” Myyah says.

Anna feels her heart stop, restart, and has to bite her lip to keep from screaming.

She hastily changes the subject, because if she starts this _now_ they’ll never get work done.

( _In about six months, she’ll gladly waste Citan’s money spending hours at work where she and Myyah decidedly_ aren’t _working, but it’s a little early for that right now, in—whatever this is, that their relationship is._ )

“Anyway!!” Anna says, dragging her attention back to Myyah’s computer screen. “Is- Is this really all we have to work with? It’s not a lot…”

“I know,” Myyah agrees, with a sigh and a somber nod. “We have more than this, but it’s still so little. Only our own research and scraps of records hundreds of years old, and from it they expect us to recreate the very blades who _created_ our world…” She trails off, expression sour. “If only we could get Sylvarant to give us one of the shards they have of Martel’s core crystal, but they won’t even admit to having any—”

The moment Myyah says _Martel_ it’s like Anna’s world goes slightly off-kilter, her hearing fuzzy. She gets the distinct sense of confusion-anger bursting in her chest, a distant horror—and why shouldn’t she be horrified, knowing that one of the original Aegises was _killed, shattered,_ shards stolen away to do who knows what with. But it’s more than that, too, like looking at sepia-toned photographs of your childhood, grasping a memory of something you _know_ you did even though you barely _remember_ doing it. The image of a scandalized headline over the news, dated hundreds of years ago, from that one journal company that the prison ( _prison??_ ) still received even though Sylvarant had tried to shut it down. The taste of someone else’s grief, something older, ancient in her blood. A sad man brokenly grinding out fragments of a tale, of the death that befell his sister and everything that came after, and though she aches with his sorrow even she doesn’t quite think all that’s worth the lingering pain in her bones and the stone that’s stuck in her skin—

What.

_What._

“…Anna?” Myyah’s voice, worried.

Anna shakes her head, blinks.

“I’m—” she says, registering the somewhat-uncomfortable press of her chair’s arm against her folded knees, the too-cool air of the lab, Myyah’s face, _Myyah’s face_. “Here. I’m here,” she says, hastily.

“What was…?” Myyah says, slowly, but can’t quite form the question.

“It’s- I’m fine, really, I don’t know what…” And she really doesn’t know _what_ , because the memories are slipping away from her like ether from a bleeding blade, evaporating once they have escaped her grasp, though leaving behind the ache of a wound. “It happens, sometimes,” she tells Myyah. “Like déjà vu, I guess? It’s fine.”

Myyah doesn’t seem convinced, but she lets it go. “If you’re sure…”

And she keeps talking about their research, their task, and so on, but Anna isn’t really listening anymore.

\- - -

It’s worse, sometimes, than it is others.

By this point everyone on the team is well aware of it.

There are words and topics that will send Anna spiraling through memories that aren’t hers, so everyone’s learned to avoid them, or talk around them, with phrases Slightly Less specific. Sometimes it’s not as bad as a spiral. Just a lapse, where she says something she has no right knowing and then immediately forgets saying. She has to have her coworkers proofread her reports before she sends them in to make sure she’s got the right date on it—putting the wrong day by a number or two happens to anyone, but Anna’s prone to getting it wrong by _several hundred years_.

Right now she’s spiraling.

Hands pressed over her ears so her already too-loud heartbeat echoes in her eardrums, hiding under her desk because???? she isn’t sure and couldn’t give a clear answer if asked, it’s just this is where her body decided to put her while in the middle of her haze, and she squeezes her eyes shut and tries to breathe quietly, quieter than that, Anna, _you cannot make a sound._ Open your eyes, Anna. You have to watch. You have to be careful. You cannot get caught now, not _now,_ not after _everything—_

Caught by who? She doesn’t know. She feels like a caged rabbit, or perhaps one that’s about to get caged again, and and and and—

Noise, suddenly. Anna scrambles backward, holds her breath, watches.

Feet approaching. Dress shoes, slacks, that’s probably fine, but she still holds very still.

“Anna?” a voice calls. She knows that voice, but can’t place a name, just that it’s _not the voice she wants to be hearing. (She yearns for a different one in the deepest parts of her, yearns for a voice she barely remembers, it’s been so so so long—_ ) “Anna, are you—oh.”

A man kneels down in front of her hiding space so he can peer at her. Blond hair, loose tie, cautious smile. She knows him, she knows she does, but cannot grasp that any better than she can grasp why the fuck she decided she needed to be down here to begin with. He looks worried, but fond.

“The year’s 2417,” he says, smoothly, with practice. “You’re at the lab—the Artificial Aegis Project lab.” The words _mean_ something, and Anna latches onto that greedily, trying to piece it all together. “Myyah’s neck-deep in her work, and Galea and Mythra both went to bed already, but I’m here. Klaus, remember? We spent four drunken hours geeking out about _Wheel of Time,_ and I bought you your favorite coffee mug…”

He trails off, watching her, like he’s waiting for recognition.

Anna thinks she’s got it, though, it’s starting to make sense, but one thing’s bothering her—

“Where’s Kratos?” she asks.

Klaus blinks at her.

“Who? If you know a Kratos, you’ve never told us about him.”

“Oh.”

Weird.

Klaus licks his lips, and continues: “Your, uh, mothers’ names are Elise and Monica, you have a little sister named Lucia. You dated someone named Alphonse in college, complain about him from time to time… Any of this ringing a bell?”

“A little,” Anna says. “It- Yeah.” Her head’s starting to clear up, for sure. “Yeah, I think it’s passed.”

“ _Do_ you know a Kratos?” Klaus asks, eyebrows raised.

“No,” Anna says, now that her head is clear enough to know that for certain. “I feel like maybe I should, though?” she admits. “But as far as I know, I definitely don’t.”

“Hm,” Klaus says, and nothing more for a moment. Then he sends her a wry look, and a gentle laugh. “Anyway, are you going to come out from under your desk?”

“Oh, yeah. Right.”

\- - -

“Seriously, Galea, this is incredible,” Anna says, and that’s probably the third time she’s said it in the past thirty minutes, not that Galea minds too much. Like any reasonable person, she soaks up the flattery. What Anna’s praising so highly is the artificial body laid out on the room’s worktable; an artificial body for an artificial blade, a compromise they’d decided on for a vast number of reasons.

The body is only half done, of course. Mythra’s over in the corner shaping the legs with careful applications of light-aligned ether. She does a much better job at it than Galea could—of course she does, no human tools can compare to a blade manipulating ether—and it gives her a task so she can help and also leaves Galea more time to work on the more finicky bits, like the wiring, and the programming. Anna’s already commented more than once how awed she is about the fact for an artificial body she can barely tell that the skin is synthetic, can barely see where the wires meet underneath, even if the paneling for where Klaus’ ether furnace will be installed is rather obvious, in Galea’s opinion.

“Once she’s finished, all she’ll need is Klaus’ ether furnace and the core crystal you and Myyah are working on,” Galea says, fondly, determined. “And then we’ll have… something. Maybe not an Aegis, exactly. But something close enough to mimic one.”

“Hopefully that’ll be enough for Citan,” Anna says, and Galea scoffs.

“Somehow, I doubt it,” she says, especially given how _particular_ Citan is about everything. “But so long as we impress the rest of the committee, it doesn’t really matter what Citan thinks, does it?”

“That’s true,” Anna laughs, along with Galea, but the laugh is distracted, and the way she’s still considering the blade on the table means she must have something else on her mind. “Hey… this isn’t how you made Mythra, is it?”

Galea laughs. “Oh, no, no,” she says. She shifts her weight against the desk she’s leaning against, arms still folded over her chest. “Mythra is way more… I wouldn’t say _sophisticated,_ because that’s an unfair comparison. The sciences that made Mythra and the sciences making this blade are two completely different things.”

“Isn’t this a lot of trouble just to make one blade without resonance?” Mythra comments, sending a glance over her shoulder, even though she doesn’t stop working. “Like, Myyah created blades without resonance, and they were just like me, weren’t they? No artificial bodies, or anything.”

“Yes, but none of our prototypes were remaining stable, remember?” Galea says. Cramming the power of an Aegis into one blade and then asking them to remain stable without resonance was…

Mythra stops channeling ether, the emotion bleed between her and Galea shifting from its usual comfortable hum to something grim, somewhat uncomfortable. Galea lets out a slow breath.

“…yeah,” Mythra says, quiet. “I remember.”

“If we can manage to make an Aegis stable without resonance, we should, though, _really,_ ” Anna insists, as if she needs to convince anyone still. They’ve all discussed this already, and the pros outweigh any perceivable cons. Resonance ties a blade to a driver, kills the blade when the driver dies, which Klaus insisted was just asking for assassination attempts to kill the driver and steal the Aegis. Anna had argued in the name of the blade’s freedom—a blade’s primary loyalty is to their driver, after all. A driver shapes a blade’s goals and ambition, sometimes even their personality. To risk enforcing a system that ties a blade as powerful as _an Aegis_ to someone who couldn’t be trusted to wield such a power responsibly…

( _‘I wouldn’t dare_ _hand resonance over to Citan,_ ’ _Myyah had argued, crisp and cold._ )

“Yeah, yeah, I was there too when y’all talked about it, you know,” Mythra interjects, taking the discomfort bleeding between her and Galea and turning it into a bitter little laugh of deflection. “And, Myyah had a point. I wouldn’t want Citan driving me _,_ either.”

Galea shudders at the thought and that’s—that’s maybe the most uncomfortable thing about this whole mess.

“Right?” Anna laughs. “Citan’s…”

“Citan’s a lot of things,” Galea says, when Anna fumbles for words.

Anna shoots her a little glare. “I was going to say _asshole,_ but that’s fine, I guess.”

“Isn’t asshole a little mean?” Galea argues.

“He _is,_ though,” Mythra argues back.

“He’s just…”

Galea barely even starts before Anna rolls her eyes. “What, you’re _defending_ him?” Anna demands, incredulous.

Galea sighs. “No, alright, you’re both right. Citan is a very particular man and he’s very condescending about our progress, or his perceived lack thereof,” she says, sending the two other women in this room an _are-you-happy_ look. Mythra certainly preens like she is, the emotion bleed singing all smug from her end. “But I’m still not sure I’d call him an asshole. He’s not _openly_ an asshole, anyway.”

“The quiet dissatisfaction is almost worse, I think?” Anna counters, her voice pitching upwards. “ _Especially_ considering how entitled he acts. If I have to hear him tell the committee about how much he’s _helping_ us one more time, I think I’m gonna punch him. He _doesn’t help._ ”

“Right?” Mythra laughs, flicking hair out of her face. She’s given up on working for the moment, leaning her hip against the workbench and crossing her arms over her chest in a near-perfect mirror of Galea. “Like, when was the last time any of y’all saw him here in the lab with us? Trick question, the answer’s never. He sends _Jade._ I mean, not that I’m complaining…”

“Oh me neither, Jade’s definitely better company than Citan is,” Anna agrees. She laughs, bright, but the edge to her tone hasn’t gone anywhere. “But, doesn’t that _bother_ you, Galea?”

“That Citan is taking credit for most of our work? Yes, actually.”

Anna rests one hand on the table with the blade prototype, the other moving through the air like she’s hoping to find an anchor to grab onto. “ _And,_ I bet you he’s taking _all_ the credit for Jade’s work,” she says, her tone still bright, anger justified. “I can hear him now—making up some excuse about how because he’s Jade’s driver, that’s his _right…_ ”

“Bullshit,” Mythra spits.

“Right!”

“I mean, who’s doing _this_ work?” Mythra asks, jerking a thumb over her shoulder to the work in question. “It’s _not_ Galea.”

“ _Exactly_ ,” Anna says, helpless. “Ugh, he makes me _sick._ Myyah’s absolutely right, I hope Citan never gets the chance to drive our children—our- our Aegises.”

She corrects her slip pretty quick, but honestly, Galea barely notices it to begin with. She’s too busy thinking about some of the things she’s heard Citan say about the project, about the blade they’re developing, about _Mythra_. She feels kind of sick, too, and… Isn’t that weird?

Sure, Galea knows that she and Mythra are something of a unique case when it comes to blade-driver relationships. Usually if a parent-child bond is formed between a driver and their blade, it tends to happen the other way around, because the driver resonates with the blade when they’re a child, slotting the blade into the pseudo-parent role. But, even so: Galea’s never met a blade-driver pair who are not at least _friends_ with each other. And she’s _definitely_ never met a driver so eager to boss their blade around before she met Citan. Shouldn’t the fact they’re driver and blade get Jade _privileges_ in the workplace, to the point of Citan being accused of nepotism, rather than… whatever the hell else is actually going on between them.

“Anyway!” Mythra says, loud and forced, clearly trying to pull the topic away from the one that’s poisoning the emotion bleed. She moves dramatically, as she always does, raising one arm and swinging it downwards to point at the half-finished blade prototype on the table next to Anna. “She needs a name.”

“Oh!” Anna says, startled.

Galea raises her eyebrows at her daughter, but she can’t say she _minds_ Mythra’s gambit to talk about something else. “Are you bringing it up because you have a name in mind, Mythra?” she asks, a little playful.

Mythra splutters for a second, embarrassment swiftly grabbed and strangled in the emotion bleed before Galea gets more than the slightest taste of it. Mythra huffs, puts her hands on her hips, but recovers remarkably.

“Pyra,” Mythra declares, confidently. “I think Pyra’s a good name.”

“What,” Anna says.

“Pyra?” Galea repeats, lifting her eyebrows a little higher in genuine surprise.

Mythra blushes, just a little, the green of her ether painted faintly across her cheeks. “I mean, her base element is fire, so it makes sense, if you ask me,” she says. And when she sees that no one else follows her logic, she scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Fire, pyre, Pyra?” she explains.

Ohh. Galea smirks, faintly. That’s cute, actually.

Anna doesn’t look nearly as convinced.

“Oh, come _on,_ no one?” Mythra whines. She crosses her arms over her chest again, turning her head away as she grumbles to herself: “Well _I_ thought it was clever…”

“Since when was her base element fire?” Anna asks, turning to Galea.

“Oh, right,” Galea says. “Every blade needs an element, of course…”

“Wait wait, _base_ element?” Anna interjects. “Implying she can manipulate _others_?” When Galea nods, Anna startles, then leans towards her coworker, eyes wide with excitement. “Is that- is that an Aegis thing?”

Galea shrugs. “Klaus thinks it might have been. But, really, do you think the committee’s going to say _no_ to a blade who can manipulate more than one element?”

“You have a point there.”

“Hey, if y’all don’t like the name I suggested, have either of you got any better ideas?” Mythra demands, apparently not willing to let that go. Not that Galea would expect anything different from her, honestly.

Galea doesn’t, really, so she turns her attention to Anna. “Do you have any ideas, Anna?”

Anna blinks, rapidly. “Why are you asking me?” she protests. “ _You_ made the body, you should get final say.”

“I still vote Pyra,” Mythra says, helpfully.

“She’s a group effort,” Galea counters Anna, smoothly. “And if we _really_ want to get technical, you and Myyah are making the core crystal, and theoretically, that’s where the soul is. So you have as much right as I do to name her.”

“Well,” Anna mumbles, _blushing_ of all things. Oh… because Galea brought up Myyah, maybe?

( _Yes, actually, because all Anna can think about is how she and Myyah literally had this conversation last night; about children, and hypothetically what they would name them if they had any, as if they weren’t currently in the process of_ creating _one._

 _She remembers the one name she had suggested, a name she could never forget, seeing as it’s one of two that she always thinks about naming her children. And she remembers Myyah saying it was a wonderful name—as if Myyah has not praised all of her ideas as wonderful, except when they are objectively terrible—and Anna wonders if she should consult Myyah before suggesting it, or- or…_ )

“Well?” Galea presses, even though she _is_ enjoying watching Anna slowly light herself on fire as she thinks about her girlfriend. The emotion bleed from Mythra’s end is full of mirth, though Mythra’s holding an absolute perfect poker face, at the moment. Galea’s so proud.

“Poppi,” Anna says, not making eye-contact with anyone. “I’ve always wanted to name a child Poppi.”

\- - -

Elsewhere, unbeknownst to his coworkers, Jade stands in the ruins of an old facility, watching his driver and some hapless workers his driver dragged with them inspect the old machinery. Or rather, one should say Jade is watching his driver watch _everyone else_ do all the work, because Citan has never lifted a finger to do work in his entire life.

The facility is run down, enough so that even the lights aren’t working ( _though someone’s on that_ ), and in the meantime they’re seeing by spheres of light that a light-aligned blade has produced for them. It’s also _freezing,_ given the location and the lack of insulation, never mind the holes in the roof through which snow has fallen. Not that Jade notices the cold, ice-aligned as he is, but whether he wants to be or not he is keenly aware of Citan’s discomfort. Humans aren’t meant for long in temperatures like this, and blades, meant to be their protectors, are prone to worry…

But Jade doesn’t worry, instead he allows himself to take small satisfaction at Citan’s suffering. He keeps it far away from the emotion bleed, of course—not that it matters, much. The emotion bleed from Citan’s end is roaring boredom, as it always is. Most of what Jade feels hits that wall and bounces right back off. He wonders if Citan ever feels it, sometimes.

Still, better safe than sorry.

Regardless, they’re here to assess the facility, so that’s what Jade does. Outside of the broken electricity and the holes in the roof, there’s rubble to be moved, snow and dust to clean, machines to rewire. Before long Jade’s attention is pulled away from the rubble and the battered control console, eyes fixing instead on the pod in the adjacent room. Merely looking at it and _knowing_ what it is, _knowing_ that that is where they put the Aegises to steal their ether and power a weapon strong enough to raze entire countries makes Jade’s ether run colder than normal, but he wants a better look, wants to gather as much information as he can, so he approaches it, feeling Citan’s eyes on his back all the while.

The pod itself is in pieces, wires shredded and metal bent in half. The destruction appears to have been done by a very enthusiastic light blade, if Jade had to guess, ( _though good for them, he thinks_ ). The whole pod will need to be rebuilt, replaced, rewired. His eyes pass over the remnants of restraints that were clearly meant to trap the Aegis within the pod, and his mouth curls with distaste that he immediately cuts off from Citan’s reach, burying it underneath a mask of pleasant curiosity.

Jade wishes he wasn’t here.

Jade wishes he could have stayed at the lab, helping with the artificial Aegis project, perhaps helping to sabotage it. Of course, where Citan goes, he goes, unless Citan needs him to run an errand that Citan is too lazy to do himself. This errand was too important to send Jade alone on, though, so they’re both here.

“What do you think, Jade?” Citan calls.

Jade thinks this is despicable. Jade thinks he’d like to find a way to make it so this cannon never works again, rather than work to restore it. Jade thinks that he’s going to be sick with anger, because his driver has only ever considered blades as tools, and creating an artificial Aegis only to condemn them to _this_ is a sin like no other, and he wants no part in it.

Not that he could ever hope to escape.

Citan says, Jade does.

( _But there’s a reason Jade does not help around the lab as much as he could._ )

All of this resentment and all of these murderous thoughts will bring Jade nothing more than pain and regret if voiced or discovered, so he keeps them as far away from Citan as he can, and when he turns to face his driver, it’s with a smile.

“Well, I’d hate to be the blade in charge of cleaning this mess up,” is what he says, his tone carefully casual.

Citan chuckles, lightly.

Jade counts himself safe, for now.

He wishes he could tell his coworkers what _exactly_ they are creating an Aegis for, since none of them know about the cannon. It’s been three hundred years, after all, and the Aegis cannons and all the destruction that they caused have—for the most part—faded from everyone’s memory. But if he told his coworkers the truth…

Jade thinks of the note, hidden in his sock drawer,

( _Is Citan still your driver?)_

Cramped, careful words, tucked away in the only place he could guarantee finding them when he inevitably lost all his memories again,

( _If so, then tally._ )

He thinks of all he knows of his current situation, from observation, from warnings he has left to himself,

( _If not, burn this and forget he exists._ )

Three tallies. Three deaths.

No reason a fourth isn’t hiding just around the corner if he doesn’t behave.

And maybe that’s a fair price, for getting his coworkers to all quit the project, to ensure no blades suffer in this particularly horrible fashion.

Except…

Citan will just hire someone else.

And if Jade dies, he forgets. If he forgets, he won’t be told again upon rebirth. And if he isn’t told again, then he will have no reason to be hesitant about helping the new hires be more efficient about creating an artificial Aegis, just as Citan wants.

( _So long as Citan lives, Jade will never be free._

_But that’s the thing, isn’t it? If a driver dies, so does their blade._

_If Citan dies, so does Jade._ )

\- - -

“At the conspiracy theories again, Anna?” comes a voice, fond.

Anna pulls her head out of the book she’s hunched over, trying to read it from only the glow of her computer screen, since the rest of the lab’s lights are low. The book’s been highlighted and the margins written all over by this point, so it’s a good thing she has more than enough money to repay the library for it. If she ever gets around to that. First she smiles at the sound of Myyah’s voice, then she catches herself and glares, swiveling around in her chair.

“They aren’t conspiracy theories,” she insists, firmly. “We’re being kept in the dark about _something,_ I’m sure of it!” There are too many inconsistencies, and, sure, maybe Sylvarant and Tethe’alla are telling different stories about the same war—why wouldn’t they—but there are inconsistencies in _Tethe’alla’s_ history, like whoever’s writing the current history is just making it up as they go. “We know so much about the Aegises, and so little about their driver, and I think it’s because they’re _hiding_ something.”

“You just like reading about him,” Myyah accuses. She leans her back against Anna’s desk, elbows holding most of her weight, expression caught somewhere between exasperated and loving. Her shirt’s unbuttoned just enough it would be distracting if only Anna were paying any attention.

Anna blushes at the accusation. “I do not,” she says, though she does. “It’s just—weird. Most important man in history, and half the time they don’t even get his name right.” She scowls, offended on his behalf, even though she’s never met the man. ( _Though sometimes, it seems, her dreams say otherwise._ ) “Why would they need to hide anything about him? Did they really just hate him that much?”

Myyah sends a long, tired look at her girlfriend, then exhales. “You sure there aren’t more exciting things you could be doing with your time, Anna?”

“No,” Anna answers, without any hesitation. This is fun, to her, even if kind of infuriating.

Myyah sighs. Keeping eye contact with Anna, she very deliberately undoes another button of her shirt.

“ _Oh!_ ” Anna says, caught somewhere between feeling delighted and a little dense. Her eyes trail over Myyah’s exposed skin and then back up to her face, grinning slowly. “You know what, you’re right. Let me just, uh—” She looks to her book, and then to the articles she has open on her computer, partially thinking she should probably find an actual stopping point, except she’s thought about the softness of Myyah’s skin for precisely the amount of time it takes to completely derail every other train of thought she had, so like. All she actually does is mark her place in her book and set it on the desk.

“You’re so dumb,” Myyah says.

“It’s a good thing you think that’s cute,” Anna says, and makes herself useful by undoing the rest of those buttons when Myyah leans in to kiss her.

\- - -

Klaus likes to visit the rest of the base every now and then, just so he doesn’t get stuck in any ruts. Ruts are easy to fall into, especially considering he and his coworkers—friends, really—have everything they need to live in the comfort of their own labs. But the mind hates monotony, and Klaus likes stretching his legs, so it's good to take walks, get a change of scenery every now and then.

Also the lab printer hates him.

He's halfway convinced that Galea reprogrammed it specifically not to work for him, somehow. ( _She can deny it all she wants, but every time she does Mythra has to stifle laughter, and that has to mean something, it_ has to.) Either way, he needs to print things so rarely—only once every other day or so—that he doesn't mind using it as an excuse to walk to the printer on base. He can chat with the other personnel here, flirt with the guy who works in the cubicle next to the printer…

“Jade, I'm starting to get the feeling that you're just stalling.”

“Oh, but I would never do that, sir.”

...overhear his boss and his boss's blade argue about something?

Klaus darts his eyes up to gauge the situation. Sure enough, there's Citan, and there's Jade, the two of them paused a little ways down at the start of the hallway that leads to the offices for the personnel that ranks high enough to warrant offices with doors, instead of a cubicle. Citan's office is down that way, somewhere. Klaus is technically done with his printing, but he fiddles around and tells the machine to make another copy so he has an excuse to stay here. Is he nosy? Yes, of course he is.

“The committee’s expecting results by the end of next month, and a round trip to Meltokio and back would take you the rest of this month to complete,” Citan says, and Klaus isn't looking ( _he knows how to not be obvious_ ) but he can hear the disapproval in Citan's tone, even if his words are casual. “It would delay the project too long. Surely you can't find the research they requested in Sybak? It _is_ the home of Tethe'alla's largest university—”

“If I needed to go to Sybak, I would have said so,” Jade interjects, and Klaus has known Jade long enough to tell that it sounds like Jade is nearing the end of his rope. He hazards a glance up; Citan's back is to him, but Jade's mostly facing his direction. Jade looks pretty tense, arms held behind his back and shoulders tight. He notices Klaus looking. They make eye contact. And then Jade says, voice clear: “They specifically asked me for something I can only acquire in Meltokio.”

Klaus is pretty sure they haven't asked Jade to fetch any documents for them—not recently, anyway. But that doesn't mean he's blind to what's going on here. Jade wants him to make something up? He'd be more than happy to.

Klaus takes his papers out of the printer and starts making his way over.

“That's right!” he calls, before Citan can open his mouth again. "Galea requested it- well, for Anna, since we all know she hit a wall, but anyway," he doesn't stop talking as he walks, taking the floor in the only way he knows how, distinctly aware of how Jade relaxes a fraction when Citan's gaze swings away from him and towards Klaus, “Galea's professor—Galea went to college in Meltokio, you know, and she wants her professor’s class notes on blade neuroscience… I was supposed to get you that letter to him from Galea, wasn't I, Jade?”

Jade doesn't miss a beat. “I'm assuming you don't have it on you,” he says, his smile teasing.

“No, I didn't know I'd be running into you,” Klaus says.

“You always do seem to have the most dreadful luck, Klaus,” Jade laments, still smiling.

Klaus laughs, slightly off-kilter, but presses on: “I'm on my way back to the labs if you want to come with me to pick it up,” he offers, because he knows business, too—the quicker they talk, the quicker they leave, the more likely they are to slide this under Citan's nose. 

“Well, I suppose that would make more sense than having you walk all the way there and back with it,” Jade says, sighing for show. “So yes, I’ll come with.” His theatrics almost distract from how clearly eager he is to step towards Klaus.

“Meltokio, huh?” Citan asks before either of them can go anywhere, considering Klaus over the rims of his glasses. ( _Why does he wear those things, they’re so small, they can’t actually be doing him any good._ )

“I know, I know,” Klaus says, all pomp and bluster, patting Citan sympathetically on the shoulder. It’s not that hard to pretend he also finds this a completely, absolutely regrettable turn of events. “Believe me, we wouldn’t ask if we didn’t need that research, and we all really, _really_ appreciate Jade’s help…” He could also make excuses about how he’s so sorry they didn’t plan for this sooner, and he’ll take all the blame for the delays, yadda yadda, but he waits to see how that lands, first.

“I suppose it can’t be helped,” Citan says, and honestly, he doesn’t even really sound _upset._ If Klaus reads too much into it, he could probably peg Citan’s expression as scrutinizing, maybe a little judgmental—but in reality? He mostly just looks like the smug bastard he always is. Unfazeable. Unnerving.

But he does walk away first, so that’s some mercy.

Klaus watches him go just long enough to make sure he isn’t going to turn around, then immediately swings his attention to Jade. Jade simply raises his eyebrows and nods in the direction of the lab in a _lead-the-way_ kind of gesture. The set of his shoulders still seems a little tense, but otherwise his smile is totally neutral, and he’s shoved his hands in his pockets all casual-like. If Klaus hadn’t been here for the conversation all of ten seconds ago, he might not have any reason to suspect anything unusual had just occurred between Jade and Citan. In fact, thinking the conversation over, it could _barely_ be called an argument. But, if Jade’s so prone to hide his true feelings behind a smile, it’s really no surprise his driver is the same.

( _And… who knows what the emotion bleed between the two of them had been like, just then. That’s not information Klaus is privy to._ )

Klaus wonders if he should ask Jade if he’s okay, but he doesn’t think Jade would appreciate the question, nor does he believe Jade would answer it honestly. So instead:

“He doesn’t give you vacation days, does he?” Klaus asks, once they’re in one of the hallways away from everyone else.

Jade laughs, far too genial to really sound sincere. “I’m afraid not,” he answers, bright.

Yeah, Jade definitely wouldn’t have answered honestly if Klaus had asked if he was okay.

“Well, I can’t blame you for wanting to get out of here for a while,” Klaus laughs. He’d want a month off if Citan was driving him, too. He _already_ wants a month off, and all he does is work here. “If the committee starts complaining, I’ll make sure my ether furnace has a conveniently unforeseeable malfunction, also,” he adds. “So don’t worry about how long you’re gone.”

“Oh,” Jade says, and Klaus turns toward him, surprised to hear Jade, well, _surprised_. Jade stares at Klaus like he doesn’t quite understand the gesture, or maybe can’t quite believe it.

It’s… honestly kind of uncomfortable, having made Jade _speechless,_ so Klaus quickly follows up with a grin and a friendly nudge to Jade’s ribs. “Enjoy your vacation,” he says.

Something in that gives Jade what he needs to regain his footing, and he does, sending Klaus a smile that’s perfectly unreadable.

“Thank you, I intend to.”

\- - -

Months pass.

The project moves steadily toward completion, barring one extended vacation on Jade’s part and one “unexpected” explosion of an ether furnace whose regulator had been mysteriously calibrated incorrectly on Klaus’ part.

Anna gets closer to figuring out where blades keep their memories, even if they won’t need to know should the committee approve of their current design.

They decide on the name Poppi.

\- - -

It’s time to wake her up.

\- - -

Everyone holds their collective breaths in the test room, watching, rapt, as Klaus carefully installs his ether furnace in Poppi and sets about calibrating it correctly. Anna clutches Myyah’s hand, watching from a few paces away from the table where Poppi lays prone. Poppi’s eyes are closed as if she is sleeping. An orange core crystal—mostly Myyah’s work, with Jade’s help—sits in the slot Galea prepared for it in Poppi’s collarbone, glowing, though her ether lines won’t be alit with the pulse of flowing ether until Klaus finishes his calibrations. It’s not a _slow_ process, exactly, but it’s just slow enough that Anna bounces with her impatience.

“Hey, Mythra,” she says.

“Shh,” Mythra hisses, from where she stands at Galea’s side. Galea bends down near Poppi’s head, running her fingers through Poppi’s synthetic hair.

“You can see the future, right?” Anna presses on anyway. Myyah squeezes her hand in warning.

Mythra rolls her eyes. “That’s not how Foresight works, and you know it,” she starts, as if Anna at all buys the fact Mythra hasn’t been looking, anyway.

“So?” Anna asks.

“So _shush_ and let Klaus focus!” Mythra snaps. “We don’t need _this_ ether furnace blowing up!”

“It’s not going to,” Klaus says, a little irritable, if good-natured. “In fact…” He hesitates for a second, seems to hold his breath. “Here we go.”

He flips the switch. Closes the access port. Takes a step back. presses a quick kiss to Poppi’s brow before she steps back as well, letting their Aegis—their _daughter_ —have the space to wake up.

Ether pulses, brilliant and orange, through artificial veins. There’s a stirring, a soft voice.

Poppi’s eyes scrunch up.

And then she opens them.

Anna’s pulse skyrockets. She tugs Myyah a little closer.

Poppi slowly, cautiously pushes herself upright, as if she is still trying to get her bearings. She almost overbalances, and Anna hears Galea mumble something about needing to adjust her actuators, but all Anna’s breath is stolen by the fact that their daughter is _alert,_ and _looking right at them._

“Oh,” she says, and her voice is small, bright, curious. “Hello.”

Mythra whoops. Klaus and Galea high-five. Anna turns and wraps Myyah in a bone-crushing hug.

\- - -

They’ve done it.

Now all they have to do is convince the committee she’s worth it.

And what better way to do that than to showcase her abilities in battle?

\- - -

“Nervous?” Mythra asks Poppi, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she waits. The two of them stand alone in the arena that the base has out back for some reason—maybe for this express purpose, actually? How the hell’s Mythra supposed to know.

“Not… really,” Poppi answers, but the way her eyes scan the stands of the arena tells Mythra otherwise. It’s not the first time either of them have been out here—they’ve been practice sparring basically since Poppi woke up, because Mythra’s always bored and it’s a great way to pass the time—but it _is_ the first time there’s been anyone but their parents in the stands. Sure, an audience of a dozen or so isn’t a lot, especially since the arena could easily hold at least a hundred, but… Half the people up there need to be _really_ impressed with Poppi. There’s a lot riding on this.

“It’ll be fine,” Mythra tells her sister, grinning wide and cocky. “Just like every other spar we’ve done.”

“Sure,” Poppi says, taking a deep breath. She doesn’t sound _convinced,_ but she looks a little steadier, so Mythra counts that as a victory.

“Whenever you’re ready, girls!” Galea calls down to them. The stands are positioned about five feet above the ground so it’s much more difficult for a stray ether arte to hurt someone it’s not meant to, but Galea’s voice carries through the silence well enough, despite the distance.

Mythra calls her sword to her hand. It appears in a flash of green ether; a two-handed broadsword done in gold and ivory, a weapon Mythra easily hefts onto her shoulder with one hand. She beckons to Poppi with her other hand. “Your move first,” she says.

“That’s cheating,” Poppi sighs, her own sword materializing in a blinding flash of orange that puts Mythra’s own sword to shame. Poppi’s is almost the size of her, golden pommel and white blade that splits in half partway down, opening to cradle a solid bar of orange light, like Poppi’s taken the sun itself and holds it in her hands. There’s a quiet note of awe from the crowd above; _good,_ Mythra thinks. Poppi deserves that and more.

“Is it really?” Mythra calls to her sister, her smile sharp.

“It is,” Poppi says, but she moves first anyway.

See, here’s the thing.

It’s pretty common for blades to have special abilities that are unique to the blade outside of their elemental affinity. Some can move faster than the naked eye can perceive. Others can manipulate the ether on the field to dampen other blades’ abilities, or rob the field of ether entirely—briefly, anyway. Mythra’s even heard of some healing blades that can provide constant, _passive_ healing to their allies in the middle of battle.

Mythra, though? Mythra’s got a little thing called Foresight.

It’s honestly not that exciting, in Mythra’s opinion. It’s basically useless outside of battle. The most it’s ever done for her is given her enough time to catch Galea’s favorite mug before it toppled completely off the counter and shattered on the floor. Or warn her someone was at the door before they even knocked. Boring shit.

In battle, though? That’s another story entirely. Foresight’s _great_ for battle. It lets her see a few seconds into the future, allowing her to predict an opponents’ movements before they strike, and act accordingly.

So, yeah, letting Poppi go first _was_ cheating.

She hasn’t even kicked off from the ground yet, and already Mythra sees her movements, loud and clear. Poppi’s coming in from the left? Better duck right, then. Mythra does and swings into opening in Poppi’s defenses—though of course, any blade worth their salt doesn’t go into battle without being ready to conjure an ether shield at a moment’s notice. Mythra’s sword hits the wall of solidified ether Poppi conjures specifically to block it, bounces back.

Mythra laughs. Poppi sends her a smile that looks _way_ more relaxed.

“You should stop being so predictable, Mythra,” Poppi scolds.

“Hey, we’re just getting started!” Mythra shoots back. She takes a swing at Poppi that Poppi parries perfectly—Mythra refuses to be jealous. Floor’s Poppi’s today, not hers. “C’mon, they want a show, let’s give ‘em one.”

She hops back to give herself space and raises her empty hand to the sky. Ether gathers around her instantly, manifests in arrows of light in the sky that with a flick of her wrist rain down on Poppi. And Poppi—Poppi doesn’t even _shield_ the damn blow, instead she does that weird, probably-an-Aegis thing that she can do and disrupts the ether flow just slightly so that the arrows all dissipate before they hit her. _Who’s cheating now,_ Mythra thinks but doesn’t get the chance to say, and. It’s alright, really. Hopefully the committee’s impressed by _that_ trick.

Hopefully they’re impressed by how Poppi’s next move is an earthquake at Mythra’s feet that turns into an explosion of fire in her face before Mythra can quite get her balance again, Foresight or no Foresight. Sure, she gets a shield up fine, but _holy shit,_ Poppi. She almost regrets talking Galea into researching element swapping. It’s cool as hell but annoying as fuck, this is why the Architect only let blades wield one element naturally, wasn’t it—

It’s fun though, in the end. Of course it’s fun.

Easily, the two of them fall into a comfortable rhythm that makes Mythra’s ether sing. She so _rarely_ gets to fight, because her driver is a researcher and all researchers ever do is sit around all day, and that’s _fine,_ but Mythra’s kicked the asses of every soldier and blade on this base otherwise and all of them are sore losers who never want to fight anymore. But _Poppi_? Poppi’s more than a fair fight, Poppi leaves Mythra eating dust, and Mythra’s _fine_ with that, really, because Poppi is her sister and refining her skills so that she can maybe _beat_ Poppi some day is a challenge that Mythra has ached for. And, sure, this spar has a little more at stake than Mythra’s pride, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be _fun._

The battle is flashy and bright, ether colliding against ether, swords clashing and sparks flying, Mythra laughing the whole while as Poppi giggles back at her. They’re giving it their all—or, as much of their all as their comfortable to give without risking _hurting_ each other, but they put on a good show either way.

Time does that thing it does in battle, where a second will feel like an eternity and vice versa, so Mythra’s not sure exactly _how_ long the spar lasts, just that Poppi manages to hit her hard enough to knock her off her feet and send her sprawling across the arena and it’s as she pushes herself to her knees she realizes she’s _tired._ She shoves her sword into the ground to give her leverage to get back up, and—

“Alright, I think that’s enough!” Galea calls.

Mythra starts to feel annoyed, because she _could_ keep going, but Poppi’s dismissed her sword and turned her eager gaze towards the stand and… it’s about _Poppi,_ today, not Mythra, and not her pride. So she swallows it and dismisses her own sword, then makes her way over to Poppi.

“You did great,” she says, holding her hand up, and Poppi high-fives her, grinning.

“You did great, too!” Poppi insists, bright.

“That was incredible,” Citan says, and Mythra beams at the praise even though coming from that mouth it’s _barely_ praise. Asshole only sounds vaguely impressed!

But his opinion doesn’t matter, really. Not compared to Galea’s joy and satisfaction filling her lungs, not compared to the rest of her parents’ cheers and clear delight. Mythra shoots them a grin and a wave, Poppi’s bouncing energy kind of infectious.

Architect, but did Poppi do good out there! If that doesn’t convince the committee, then Mythra’s sure they all don’t fucking have eyes. Did they _see_ that fight?

“But before we get too excited,” Citan continues, and is being able to pitch your voice perfectly through a crowd so everyone hears you despite the noise a skill _all_ assholes have? Klaus is pretty good at it, too. “Perhaps we should see how the Aegis Prototype holds up against a blade she’s not used to sparring, shouldn’t we? Jade?”

Mythra’s ether runs cold. That’s not what they planned for at all. And, yeah, Poppi can _handle_ this, for sure, but… Mythra’s joy slides sideways straight into discomfort, anyway. Because there’s—there’s a _thing_ , that Citan does, that Citan _always_ does, and it drives her nuts. He won’t even _look_ at Jade when he addresses him. Isn’t that like basic driver-blade communication 101? Even if the two of them really _are_ on the same wavelength all the time ( _and maybe they are, how would Mythra know, she’s not in either of their heads! And she doesn’t want to be!_ ) isn’t it still better to double check?

Especially considering Jade definitely sends a look at Citan like _are-you-sure_ but Citan doesn’t even turn to it. Which means Jade has to assume what his driver’s thinking instead of knowing for certain and isn’t that a really shitty way to live? Mythra hates the idea of it.

( _She knows that herself and Galea are probably on the edge of the spectrum of normal blade-driver relationships, given her own nature of being artificial, but even still…_ )

Jade hops down into their makeshift arena, and given that he’s a blade, it’s no surprise that he sticks the landing like it’s nothing, despite the drop being a little over five feet. He’s smiling like he always is, though there’s a hint of confusion in the raise of his brows.

“Shall we, then?” he asks, and he barely shifts his posture before summoning his spear to him in a snap of red ether. ( _How an ice blade got to be red, Mythra has no idea_.) The spear is as red as his ether, save only for the blade of it, which glistens silver in the sunlight. Jade doesn’t heft his spear, exactly; instead he waits for Poppi’s response.

“I don’t see why not,” Poppi replies slowly, as she sends a look up into the crowd to their parents, sitting not far to the right of Citan. Anna sends them a nervous, confused thumbs up, at which Myyah immediately turns to Anna and says something they can’t hear from this far away. Galea shrugs, though, like she doesn’t see a problem either. Klaus’ attention is fixed on Citan, and doesn’t move.

Well. That’s still approval from most of their parents, and Citan’s kind of in charge, so… Mythra guesses there’s nothing for _her_ to do other than get out of the way and let this happen, regardless of any bad feelings she has.

“Good luck, Poppi,” Mythra says, making her way to the stairs up to the stands. Sure, she could _probably_ jump it, but again: now’s not the time to show off. Spotlight’s Poppi’s, today. Not hers.

“What, you aren’t going to wish me any luck?” Jade asks, as Mythra passes. “ _I’m_ the one going up against an Aegis prototype.”

“You’ll be fine,” Mythra tells him, dismissively. Jade hums.

Once up the stairs, Mythra starts navigating the benches towards her parents. She’s glad the committee members are all sitting on the other side of Citan.

“I know you were holding back, earlier, but there’s no need to do that now,” Citan instructs, loud and clear. Mythra balks at the thought, though she can’t _deny_ she and Poppi were holding back, just a little. Of course they were, they didn’t want each other to get _hurt,_ healing blade on standby or no. But… Jade…

Mythra wishes she was still down below so she could see Jade’s face. From this angle she can only see Poppi’s, and from this distance not very well. Poppi looks… confused, probably? “After all,” Citan continues. “This _is_ meant to be a demonstration of the full of your strength.”

Mythra swallows. Foresight tells her she has about five seconds before the battle starts, though, so she better make her way to her seat if she doesn’t want to miss it. Maybe she jumps across the benches to get there. Who cares, really? No one’s watching her right now.

She sits down next to Myyah just in time.

The temperature had already dropped ten degrees thanks to Jade’s influence, but now the arena explodes with ice, icicles rocketing up from the floor in Poppi’s direction. Poppi jumps back, channeling fire to give herself space to breathe, her sword shining brilliant and orange all the while. It’s an incredible display of power from the both of them, perhaps even more so from Poppi when she shifts elements as only she can and pulls at her water affinity to send all the melted ice back in Jade’s direction. It hits an ether shield, parts around him—

The energy is so wildly different from the energy of Mythra’s own spar against Poppi, a spar that concluded barely over a minute ago. What had been bright and fun is now dark and somewhat tense, despite Poppi’s laughter ( _she’s doing incredible under pressure, to be honest_ ) and Jade’s lighthearted jokes that offset his cutthroat attacks.

“Shouldn’t Jade be more careful?” Myyah asks, loud enough to be heard over the roar of ether, not daring to take her eyes away from the fight below. “He could hurt her!”

Citan replies, unconcerned: “If we coddle her, we won’t see what potential she can reach.” As he says it, Klaus hums, like he agrees there. Mythra glances at his face; he looks uncomfortable, though, especially as Citan continues: “If your Aegies prototype can be felled by a mere blade, then what use is she, really?”

“What about Jade?” Anna asks, sharp. “If Poppi uses the full of her power against him—”

“Jade can take it,” Citan answers. His attention remains fixed on the battle as well, but unlike everyone else in the room, he seems to be _enjoying_ it. “He’s the strongest blade I’ve ever driven. And if he _can’t_ take it… then your Aegis prototype must be something special, indeed.”

The battle continues. Mythra’s parents and their friends watch with anxious attention, and even the committee seems to be somewhat nervous. Mythra herself can’t help but peek into her Foresight more often than she’d like to admit, just to make sure each upcoming swing isn’t fatal, each blast of ether isn’t going to blow the whole place up. Citan’s instructions that neither blade hold back creates a sharp undercurrent to every swipe, every blow. Each hits a little closer than the last, each a little more powerful than the last, ether cascading off shields and dispersing into the air and

Poppi lands a hit.

A _bad_ hit.

That was the full of her strength, Mythra thinks, and it hit Jade square in his stomach—thank Architect it was his stomach, and not his core—and there’s a moment where Jade’s corporeal form _ripples,_ like his base ether can’t decide if it’s going to break down or keep holding him together.

He stands there for a terrible second, and then another, wide fucking open.

Mythra shouldn’t, Mythra knows she shouldn’t, but Poppi’s moving for another attack and Mythra can See what happens if that hit lands and—

“ _Poppi!_ ” she shouts, jumping to her feet.

Poppi looks up at Mythra, then dismisses her sword mid-swing so that momentum cannot get away from her and land a fatal blow. She rolls past Jade and staggers to a stop there, spinning around to look at him. Is she worried? Horrified? Mythra can’t see either of their faces from this angle.

“My, I see she’s capable of some incredible restraint,” Citan commends.

( _And there, in the depths of Citan’s voice, there’s something Jade knows how to read because he listens for it every day, something Jade knows how to read because right now it fills the emotion bleed between the two of them. A flash of crisp disappointment, and_

_Oh, Jade thinks_

_Dread and understanding coating his core_

_He thought he’d have a little longer than three years before it got to this point._ )

Jade doesn’t really move, like maybe he’s in shock, or in pain, and Mythra isn’t sure if she should be impressed or just call him a stubborn ass for not having collapsed after taking a hit like that. The healing blade that was on standby starts making his way to Jade, and Mythra hesitates only a second more before she just jumps down there to join them. She hates that her Foresight can’t be pushed more than a minute or so into the future, because that isn’t enough time to know if things end _okay._

By the time Mythra’s made her way over, the healing blade—Hubert, he said his name was, last time they talked? He’s the only blade on base other than Poppi with blue hair, so it must be Hubert—has gotten Jade to sit, at least, so that’s an improvement.

“I’m really, _very_ sorry,” Poppi is gushing, on her knees, not quite hovering because she knows better but still clearly very distressed. Mythra squats down beside her, puts a hand on her shoulder for support. “I didn’t- I didn’t mean to—”

“I’m quite alright,” Jade begins, and Hubert snaps: “Talk _after_ I’ve healed you!”

Well, Mythra doesn’t have anything important enough to say to distract Hubert from his work, especially considering Mythra’s well aware how close Jade just came to dying. She shudders at the thought, wonders how the hell Jade is still _smiling_ right now. Hubert grumbles into the silence as his water wraps its way slowly around Jade, assessing and healing him. Poppi rocks back and forth on her heels, looking like she probably wants to apologize again but also not wanting to distract Hubert.

Mythra could say something to Poppi, she supposes, but she doesn’t know what to say. And she doesn’t have time to think of anything, because Klaus and Galea and Anna and Myyah are making their way over. And…

Mythra scowls at the group. One person short… She looks up to the stands, but. Citan’s not there, either.

What kind of asshole doesn’t come check on their blade after their blade nearly _died_?

“Jade—” Myyah begins, but Klaus grabs her, holds her back, which is good, Mythra thinks, for the half-a-glare that Hubert shoots their direction before turning his attention back to Jade. The ether gathering around them is _thick,_ almost overbearing, and honestly Mythra isn’t sure she’s ever seen a healing arte take this long.

Galea moves not for Jade, but for her daughters, reaching down to squeeze both of their shoulders. Mythra sends a shaky smile up at her mother, though Poppi doesn’t move except to stop rocking, hugging herself tightly even as Galea holds one shoulder and Mythra holds the other. Against Mythra’s dread there beats a confidence that everything’s going to be okay, Galea sending signals to Mythra along the emotion bleed and… Mythra knows why it’s a good thing, that Poppi stands without resonance, but a part of her wonders if she wouldn’t benefit from having a driver to anchor her in whatever storm is going on inside of her head right now.

( _But then… Mythra wonders if Jade’s receiving literally any kind of anchor in the storm_ he’s _weathering, and reassesses._ )

“There,” Hubert says, finally. His ether disperses, though he still keeps an arm around Jade’s shoulders, like he isn’t sure the other blade isn’t about to fall over on him. “He’s stable,” Hubert addresses the gathered crowd of Jade’s worried friends. “But the sooner I get him to the infirmary, the better _I’ll_ feel.” With the hand that isn’t supporting Jade, he pinches the bridge of his nose. “The damage—” he begins, then cuts off, with an uncertain look at Poppi.

“Sorry,” she starts again. Mythra squeezes her a little tighter as Galea does the same.

“There’s no need to fuss so much,” Jade laughs, managing to not sound winded in a way that makes Mythra jealous and worried all at once. He’s still smiling like all he did was trip and fall on his ass. “I _am_ fine, after all.”

Hubert makes a noise like that’s debatable. Poppi trembles, and it’s all Mythra can think about.

“Poppi, it’s okay,” she adds, hoping to sound more reassuring than Jade—though, Jade’s made that _pretty easy_ to do. “I know things got kind of dicey there, but… you stopped before anything bad _actually_ happened, and Jade _is_ okay.”

“He is,” Hubert allows.

“It _could_ have been really bad, though,” Poppi whispers, chin tucked to her chest. “I almost… I almost killed him…”

There’s a collective inhale. Jade beats them all to the punch.

“Even if you had, it’s not like I would have stayed that way,” he says, light and airy. How the hell is he _still smiling,_ saying something like _that_!? And- and he _continues_ : “Blades come back after they die, don’t they?”

“Sure, but you wouldn’t have your memories,” Anna counters, quiet and bitter, like it’s the worst thing she can imagine.

“I suppose that’s true,” Jade answers, blithely.

There’s no way he can be smiling _sincerely,_ saying that so casually. Maybe he’s still in shock?

But then he tilts his head, happy-as-you-please, and laughs: “My, are you all saying you’d _miss_ me? I’d still be Jade, wouldn’t I?”

Anna’s hands clench into fists so tight her knuckles turn white, and she looks sick in the way she always looks when she’s having trouble remembering where exactly she is right now, but Mythra barely thinks about that past the horror that’s lodged squarely in the back of her throat, stealing the voice from both herself and Galea.

“Sure,” Klaus answers, bitter. “But it’d be a lot of memories to lose.”

Jade doesn’t react at all. It makes Mythra furious enough she breaks past the horror. “Doesn’t that _bother_ you!?” she spits around the anger roaring in her belly, anger that Galea’s continued horror sings in perfect harmony with. “C’mon, Hubert, back me up—doesn’t losing _everything you are_ scare you to death!?”

Hubert turns his face away, fingers tight on Jade’s shoulder. “I think,” he says, carefully, clearly bothered, “that it’d be better to drop this conversation, right now. Jade’s not in a condition to be talking about this.”

“I’m fine,” Jade says, just as Mythra says: “ _Don’t_ dodge the question!”

“No, Mythra, Hubert’s right,” Myyah interjects. “Jade _should_ rest. Come on.” And she does—what she’s always been good at. Diffusing the conversation, steering it the way she wants it to go. Before anyone can really react, she’s already on her feet, her hands finding Jade’s and gently tugging him to his feet with Hubert’s help, leaving no room for either of them to have a say in the matter.

Myyah begins shepherding Jade and Hubert towards the base like a worried mother hen, leaving the rest of them in the makeshift arena, Poppi still hugging herself as she sits in the dirt.

“Poppi, listen,” Galea begins, kneeling down next to her daughter. When Poppi doesn’t answer, Galea tugs her into a hug, tucking Poppi’s head under her chin and holding her close. “You did great out there, sweetie. You really did.”

“I just wish it felt like that,” Poppi says, through tears.

“Well,” Anna says, around what sounds like a knot in her throat. Her smile is sharp, bitterly determined. “Jade’s awful sense of humor aside—you knocked the committee’s socks the fuck off, I’m sure.”

“Mmhmm,” Klaus agrees, and it’s only that Mythra’s known him long enough tell he’s only putting on a brave front that keeps her from getting pissed off at how unbothered his tone of voice is. She does hate how good he is at that, though. “That counts for more than you can imagine.”

“…okay,” Poppi whispers.

It’s a long time before any one of them moves from that spot, though.

\- - -

It takes a little over full twenty-four hours for Hubert to stop fussing and send Jade off with a clean bill of health. Not that Jade _minds,_ he supposes. Those twelve hours he slept in the base infirmary were probably the last good night of sleep he’ll ever get again, given the circumstances.

And, of course, not having to deal with Citan for an entire day was a blessing as well, at least of a sort. It’ll mean Citan will be insufferable tomorrow—knowing him, running Jade ragged with all of the errands he _could_ have done himself while Jade was out of commission but refused to do, anyway. That thought makes a familiar spark of anger light in Jade’s core, but it’s not enough to combat the oppressive dread he’s grappling with, otherwise. He almost wishes he didn’t have to face Citan at all, after what happened yesterday, but… He knows better than to wish so fruitlessly.

It can be a problem for future Jade, though, Jade decides as he reaches his room. A problem future Jade _must_ deal with, of course, but there’s a something a little more pressing for present Jade to take care of before he turns in for the night.

Jade lets out a long sigh as he closes the door to his room behind him. His room is large enough to be more than comfortable, a reading chair complete with a side-table and a lamp on the left near the door leading to the bathroom, a desk against the back wall, with medium-sized bookshelf situated to the right of the desk. His bed is tucked into the far-right corner, and his dresser in righthand corner closer to the door. The room is clinically clean, everything in its place, with the sole exception of the desk littered with a mountain of ( _Citan’s_ ) paperwork that Jade can never diminish despite valiant efforts.

Jade hesitates, then locks the door for good measure, though in reality—given Citan has _keys_ —it’ll only buy him a few extra seconds of time if Citan decided to come knocking at this ridiculous hour. Precious seconds, though, when dealing with matters like this.

Long, confident strides take him to his bookshelf, despite the roaring of anxious ether in his ears. He runs his finger over the spine of the books, as if trying to remember which book the note is tucked in, as if he could possibly forget. He has to bend down to reach it and, ah, does his body still hurt from Poppi’s attack. No wonder, for how the blow had seemed ready to _undo him_ until he was base ether particles. Either way.

Jade retrieves the book from the second shelf from the bottom; a book he’s never done more than skim a few pages of, some ludicrous dime store novel about forbidden blade romance that’s more poorly written sex scenes than it is plot. Hiding the note here is to make finding the note easier for a Jade with no memories, though that comes at the cost of keeping multiple these ridiculous books on his shelves and needing to be seen pretending to read them so no one questions his taste, but. Small prices to pay, for his safety, and only slightly more obnoxious than putting up with a drawer full of unmatched socks.

He sits down at his desk with the book, cracking it open and pulling out the note he hid here, three lifetimes ago. A piece of paper, folded crisply in half.

He finds himself reading it again, even though he’s memorized the words on the page by now for how much time he’s spent playing them back in his head and dissecting them.

> _Hello Jade,_
> 
> _I’ll skip the pleasantries. The current date is 6.28.2412. I was awoken in 2409. I have a few facts to share with you about our driver._
> 
> _First: Citan does not care about us. We are nothing but a tool to him. We are expected to watch, listen, serve, never speak unless spoken to, and certainly never tell anyone else about what we have heard or seen._
> 
> _The good news about how little Citan cares about is us that I highly doubt he’ll rummage through our things provided we don’t give him reason to. I’ve taken caution nonetheless, but I believe this note is safe. I hope._
> 
> _Second: Whatever we have forgotten, Citan wants us to forget._
> 
> _He belittles the notion of me wanting to remember previous lives every time I bring it up. Outright laughed at the idea of me keeping a diary to document my memories for my future selves, because why would ever I need to do that? Even if I kept a diary and miraculously got him to agree to pass it on to theoretical future selves, I suspect he would just burn it the moment I was dead._
> 
> _I decided against keeping one, personally. There isn’t anything to remember that isn’t in this note—nothing that wouldn’t be insanely risky to keep written record of, anyway. If you decide otherwise, keep it hidden._

Rereading that line, Jade chuckles, humorless. There are plenty of memories he’d love to record in a diary, now—trivial things, monumental things, like the awful gift Anna got him last New Year’s, or that night Mythra managed to drink three whole glasses of wine before anyone other than him noticed, and certainly the way Myyah has always thanked him for his help for as long as they’ve been working together. Moments of brightness he treasures in what is otherwise a slog of a life.

He wonders if the Jade who wrote this note had any moments like that. He isn’t sure if it’s worse if that Jade didn’t or worse if that Jade did and really thought they weren’t worth saving.

Of course, it wouldn’t do for anyone _else_ to find out he’s as sentimental is he is, but certainly he could trust himself with the knowledge. Who else does he have to trust?

Back to the note, though.

> _Third, let me elaborate: Citan really does expect us not to breathe a word of what we overhear to anyone—and we will overhear everything, because he takes us everywhere. _
> 
> _Because of this, it’s difficult to say that he wants us to forget because we learned things we weren’t supposed to know, seeing as he absolutely takes no precautions against us learning to begin with. Honestly, I suspect it’s not our knowing that’s the problem—it’s what we do with the knowledge. If we, say, share it with anyone we weren’t supposed to, or especially if we use it to undermine him, that’s when he gets suspicious. That’s when he starts watching us closely. That’s when…_
> 
> _Fourth: I believe Citan is killing us to get rid of our memories._
> 
> _I do not know this for certain. This is not something I can record._
> 
> _That’s why I made the tally. If there is ever more than the one I left when I made it…_
> 
> _Well, once is an accident. More than once?_
> 
> _7.38.2413 Update, two tallies in: I suppose he has been killing us. People say it was an accident on the job. Citan corroborates, if I can ever get him to talk about it. Except: This job is not dangerous. I’m a glorified secretary._
> 
> _I asked about a diary. I think that was a mistake._
> 
> _Fifth: Yes, you do have to do all of his paperwork._
> 
> _Sixth: He’s not cruel, exactly. He just isn’t kind._

And then, added when he found this note, three years ago:

> _2.17.2415 Three tallies._

Jade breathes deep and tired, sliding his glasses up his nose with one hand so he can pinch the bridge of it, the other hand poised to fold the note in half again at the slightest sound of someone approaching. Three years ago, only hours after been woken up, he found this note for the first time. He almost hates himself for it, for robbing himself of any kind of peace he could have ever possibly had. The knowledge that your driver wants you dead is a cruel burden to carry, a cold song and dance to play for so long.

Except over the past three years, not a single one of Citan’s actions has proven the note _wrong,_ and Jade admits that he’d rather know than not.

He just wishes he knew _where he crossed a line._ He’s been very, very careful. He has not passed along any of the cruel truth of the Artificial Aegis Project, regardless of how badly he wants to halt the project completely. And, yes, he’s stalled the project some but—was that really enough to make Citan suspicious? Or, based on the dates of the note, is three years all he can ever really hope to get?

Well, either way, he has an addition to make to the note. He retrieves a pen from his desk.

> _4.33.2418 Citan tried to kill me yesterday._
> 
> _Well, he didn’t personally attack me, he merely threw me into a situation where death could claim me._

And, perhaps that is rude, to Poppi. It wasn’t her fault. She was only following orders, same as he was. She merely landed a lucky hit—it’s not like she’d been _trying_ to kill him. But there isn’t any point in wasting the space to articulate that, nor any point in wasting the space to wax poetic about whether or Citan is actually currently out to kill him or simply an opportunist. Jade’s money is on the latter, but then, he finds it hard to forget the careful command that Poppi not hold back. And if that’s hard to forget, then it’s impossible to forget taste of the disappointment sliding down his throat, just seconds after a could-be fatal blow proved not to be. Neither can he forget the fact that Citan didn’t even bother to see if he was okay, even if he was glad for Citan’s absence. And he cannot, _cannot_ afford to plan for anything other than the worst.

So, he finishes the note off with:

> _But his disappointment when it didn’t is telling enough._

And then he puts the pen away, folds the note back up, returns it to the book and then returns the book to the shelf. After his next conversation with Citan—assuming he _survives_ said conversation—he can decide if he needs to add anything else to the note.

That finished, Jade dutifully gets ready for bed, since Hubert strongly recommended it be the first thing he do, even with the clean bill of health. Jade would hate to disrespect his healer’s orders, and the hour is late enough that it would be foolish to stay awake and do, what, paperwork? Jade thinks not. He finds once he’s lying down that it feels good to not be upright, actually, which means it’ll probably be a few more days before he’s up to top form, again. Expected, but unfortunate.

More unfortunate is that despite how tired his body is, his mind is eager to churn with all the thoughts he was too exhausted to think while he was in the infirmary. Words from his coworkers played back; Mythra’s anger, Galea’s silent horror, Klaus’ bitter arguments to counter the sickly sweet nonsense rolling off his own tongue. Maybe it was unfair, unkind, to respond like that. To _test_ them like that.

Because: they were all right, of course—he _would_ hate to lose his memories.

He just hadn’t realized that he wasn’t the only one who would hate it.

\- - -

They’ve got days to kill while the committee thinks their decision over, and not a lot of work to do ( _other than reports no one wants to write_ ), so it’s really no surprise that while Mythra and Poppi are out sparring to handle their restless energy, the conversation takes a turn like this.

“Okay okay okay,” Anna says, Very Seriously, bouncing in her desk chair as she shifts her weight and folds her legs under her in the other direction. “Fuck Galea, marry Myyah, kill Klaus.”

“Hey—” Klaus begins, as Galea laughs, and Myyah nods in thought, smiling.

“Fuck Galea, marry Anna, kill Klaus,” Myyah echoes, and Klaus splutters.

“Now _come on—”_

“You two are _disgusting,_ ” Galea says, all laughs and fondness. Myyah laughs brightly, and Anna rolls her chair over closer to Myyah so she can kiss her short and sweet all while Klaus grumbles into his coffee.

“What’s your answer?” Myyah asks, and Galea hums dramatically, leaning back against Anna’s desk as she thinks.

“Fuck… Myyah _and_ Anna,” she begins.

“That’s against the rules,” Klaus protests.

“Marry no one—”

“ _Also_ against the rules—”

“Kill Klaus.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Anna laughs so hard her sides _ache,_ but Klaus—one foot resting on his knee, bouncing in his chair with his agitation and _glaring like that—_ is an incredible sight, and this whole thing is perfect. Klaus pointedly doesn’t look at any of them as he takes a long drag of his coffee, which just makes it all that much better. Myyah and Galea share grins, reveling in the beauty of their coordination.

“Well, Klaus?” Myyah asks.

He sets his coffee down on the nearby filing cabinet with finality.

“Fuck Galea,” he opens.

“Oh, I see I’m popular,” she laughs.

“Marry Myyah—”

“Ew.”

“Platonically, of course, for tax benefits.”

“Better.”

“Kill Anna.”

Anna splutters in shock, even though she should have seen it coming. “I’m- I’m _sorry_??”

Klaus just shoots her a grin.

“Oh, it’ll be fine!” he says proudly. “After all, you’re reincarnating, remember?”

“None of us can prove that!!” Anna counters, laughing. Of course, in all the time they’ve been working together, of _course_ they’ve theorized and joked about Anna’s déjà vu spells and weird memory. For all the theories they’ve come up with, reincarnation remains Klaus’ favorite.

“Well why don’t we find out,” he says, and as offended as Anna is all she can do is grin, because that’s the best way her life has been threatened, ever.

“Reincarnation is _bullshit_ ,” Galea argues, not for the first time.

“No no no, listen, _listen_ ,” Klaus says, still grinning. “If it’s reincarnation, that explains why she’s so obsessed with one Mister Kratos Aurion.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Anna spits, as Klaus waggles his eyebrows at her.

“You are though,” Myyah counters, fondly.

“Shut up!!”

“Honestly, it’s not the fact that I think reincarnation is wrong, I just think it’s _boring_ ,” Galea tells Klaus, arms folded over her chest. “ _Why_ go with reincarnation when it could be something like, I don’t know, the walls between the multiverse breaking down—”

“Centered directly around Anna?” Klaus asks.

“Why not!”

Klaus considers it for a moment, then nods. “I suppose that’s fair.”

Anna starts to whine about how much she hates all of them (she does not), when suddenly she spots Jade poking his head into the room, clearly looking for them, and forgets all about that.

“Oh, Jade!” she calls, shooting upright in her chair so she can better wave him down, as if he would head anywhere that wasn’t where the four of them are gathered around her desk. “Jade, Jade, come play a game with us.”

“Oh I’m terrified of his answer,” Galea says.

“That’s what will make it interesting,” Myyah says.

“What kind of game?” Jade asks as he finishes approaching, in a tone that can be best described as cautiously interested.

“FMK,” Anna says.

“Hm?”

“Fuck, Marry, Kill? We give you a list of three people and then you vote which you want to, you know.”

“I see.” Jade pushes his glasses up his nose. “Well, what’s my list, then?”

“Uh… any of the four of us,” Klaus answers. “I think if I try and narrow it down to just three, they’ll all vote to kill me again.”

Jade laughs, shortly, then taps a knuckle against his chin as he thinks it over.

“Fuck… literally none of you,” he declares.

“That’s fair,” Anna says.

“Thank goodness,” Myyah says.

“Marry Klaus, because someone has to.”

“I’m not sure if I should be happy that finally _someone_ doesn’t vote to kill me, or offended that you clearly just decided to marry me out of pity—” Klaus protests, and Anna about chokes with the effort of trying to hold her laughter in her chest. Galea’s wheezing by this point and even Myyah rolls her eyes, all while Jade’s smile does not drop an inch. To top it all off, Klaus is _pouting,_ which is objectively hilarious, and—

“Kill Citan,” Jade says.

Anna stops laughing.

Like, okay, yeah, she’d kill Citan, too, if she were presented the legal opportunity, but. _But._ Anna turns to share startled looks with her coworkers—who are clearly just as startled and unsettled as she is not just by the notion of Jade joking about killing his driver but also just how _casually_ Jade said it—before turning back to Jade, who watches their horror with a laid-back, disinterested smile.

Anna isn’t sure she’s ever seen Jade do anything _other_ than smile, actually.

“Anyway,” Jade says, and fixes his glasses again. “Speaking of my dear driver, he’s still waiting for your reports on the project. I wouldn’t ask you to hurry with them, seeing as it’s not like _he_ can be bothered to be punctual about anything, but. He wanted me to let you know.”

Message delivered, Jade heads off again, raising his hand in a wave as he goes.

\- - -

( _Later, Anna will pull Galea aside._

_“That’s fucked up, right? Like? That’s fucked up.”_

_“Maybe he was just joking? You know Jade, his humor’s just… like that.”_

_“Yeah, sure, but. That didn’t feel like a ‘haha, yeah I’d kill my boss’ joke—I mean. That’s his_ driver _.”_

_“Well.”_

_“Blades don’t just joke about killing their drivers!!”_

_“They don’t,” Galea relents. “They really don’t. But…”_

_“But?”_

_“Drivers don’t just ignore the fact their blade almost died, either.”_ )

\- - -

Citan calls them in to discuss the committee’s decision regarding Poppi.

He waits until they’re all sitting before he says anything, and, maybe that should have been their first clue. Anna’s too distracted, though, because it doesn’t take any kind of genius to notice that Jade’s _standing,_ like there _isn’t_ room at the table for him to sit ( _there is_ ). Anna sends him a look, questioning, concerned, but he doesn’t meet her eyes for more than a passing moment, smiling the whole time. She has half a mind to grab him when they’re done here, see if she can talk to him, but—

“Your prototype is incredible work, but it’s not what we were looking for,” Citan says, and Anna forgets about Jade entirely.

“What,” she says, swinging her attention to her boss. Under the table, Myyah’s hand finds hers.

“We’re aware,” Klaus argues, slow and sharp. “Poppi was always something of a compromise—”

“That, _you_ okayed _,_ mind you,” Galea adds, glaring daggers at Citan.

“—but she mimics an Aegis in strength,” Klaus continues, arms folded over his chest, eyes not leaving Citan’s face. “And, honestly, I’m _surprised_ that the committee doesn’t want anything to do with the most powerful blade that the country has seen in decades. I know you lot, you’re eager to snatch up the strongest blades and squeeze every ounce out of them for the ‘good’ of Tethe’alla. Why _wouldn’t_ you want a blade like Poppi?”

“She’s not really a blade though, is she,” Citan counters, smooth.

“Ex- _cuse_ me!?” Anna spits.

Citan turns his attention to her, eyeing her over the top of his glasses. She’d call the look disapproving, except he’s still _smiling,_ the slimy bastard. “As far as I was aware, the definition of a blade involves it being capable of resonating with a human, doesn’t it?” Citan says, bright.

Myyah’s grip on Anna’s hand becomes like iron, her anger beating in the pulse of her fingers. There’s a second, Anna sees, where Myyah’s eyes dart towards Jade but if he’s upset he isn’t showing it. Myyah turns her attention back to Citan, her posture perfect, the only indication of her distress in how tight she clings to Anna.

“Are you saying that you want nothing to do with Poppi because she can’t resonate?” Myyah demands, and Anna’s—never heard her this furious, actually. It’s a quiet, chilly kind of thing, an edge of misery hidden underneath the corners of it. “That’s no reason to discount her!"

Citan gives Myyah a look that suggests he thinks that’s the only reason he needs.

“She’s not really a blade,” he declares, shrugging, like that’s that, end of discussion, there’s nothing he can do. Anna wonders if maybe he paid the committee off. “And she’s _certainly_ not an Aegis. Frankly, I’m beginning to believe signing off on her was a mistake.”

Anger lights like fire in Anna’s veins. Myyah’s grip on Anna’s wrist is the only reason she hasn’t launched herself across the table to punch Citan’s face in a time or five. “Are you- are you fucking serious right now!?” she spits, because Myyah doesn’t have a hand covering her mouth. “You can’t- you can’t _talk_ about her like that!” She’s not quite jumping out of her seat because again: Myyah’s hand on her wrist, but she can feel her tone pitch upward in distress and—

“Come now, Anna, there’s no need to be childish,” Citan says, reproachful.

“Childish!?” Anna squeaks in disbelief, her voice rising another octave. He is being an _asshole_ and she has every right to be upset right now! There’s no need for him to call her _childish_ when he’s _insulting her daughter._ The way Citan raises his eyebrows, amused, makes Anna really wish Myyah didn’t have her wrist in a vice-grip right now.

“Well if Poppi isn’t good enough for you, what do you want us to do, then?” Galea asks, crisp. Anna isn’t sure if she’s grateful or furious the rest of her coworkers are ignoring her.

“Start over, obviously,” Citan answers Galea, apparently unbothered. “And be sure to do it right, this time.”

“But—” Myyah begins.

“Alright,” Galea interjects, with more grace than any of the rest of them have right now. “We’ll go back to the drawing board.” She gets to her feet, and after she sends a glance at him, Klaus follows her. Straight-backed and silent, they slip past Citan and out the door. Citan watches with disinterest. Jade, standing behind Citan, nods at their passing.

Anna wants to do—something, she’s not sure what, she just knows that she’s _burning_ and this _isn’t fair_ and she thinks she’s only hated one man more than she hates Citan fucking Uzuki. Her heart is pounding and her head is spinning and it’s only Myyah’s hand on her wrist that gets her to leave. They walk in oppressive silence, Anna jittery and wanting to _just hurt something, already,_ but Myyah’s grip on her wrist is tight and there’s nothing to hurt except Myyah, so she lets Myyah lead her back towards the lab, vision blurred with anger and tears, until Myyah lets them stop in some hallway.

She lets go of Anna’s wrist and turns to her, reaching slowly up to tuck Anna’s hair behind her ears, to run soothing fingers over Anna’s face.

“I know,” Myyah says gentle. “I know, I’m furious, too. But…”

She can’t seem to find the words. Anna can barely open her eyes to focus on Myyah’s despair.

“I know it’s—nothing,” Anna bites out, around the anger in her throat. “I know it’s—I mean of course you don’t get it right the first try. And I’m not even _mad_ that he wants us to try again, I just— _you heard how he talked about her._ ”

“I know, I know,” Myyah says. She’s barely an inch shorter than Anna, but she still has to stand on her toes to press a kiss to Anna’s forehead. The kiss is trembling, lingers too long, and Myyah’s fingers shake until Anna reaches up to steady them in her own. “I know.”

**\- - -**

“Here,” Poppi says, passing Anna a mug of coffee.

Anna blinks up at her daughter, surprised, then takes it with a shaky little laugh. “Thanks,” she says, and takes a sip because it’d be rude _not_ to. To her surprise, Poppi managed to get the balance between coffee and cream perfect? She looks up at Poppi with newfound awe and fondness—sure, there’s been plenty of time for someone to have taught her this, but it still sweeps Anna off her feet with delight.

Plus: she guesses Poppi just wanted to cheer her up, huh? Fuck. That’s so sweet?? Too sweet?? It doesn’t matter that Poppi’s been awake for three weeks now, that definitely hasn’t been enough time for Anna to get used to this whole technically-being-a-parent thing. In hindsight, she’s not sure she was exactly emotionally _prepared_ to be a parent—certainly not to a child who’s _already in her teens,_ blades are so weird—but. Okay, she wouldn’t trade this for anything, though.

“Really, thanks,” she tells Poppi again, already feeling a little better.

“You’re welcome!” Poppi tells her brightly, plopping down in Myyah’s empty chair and giggling gleefully as it spins a little with her weight. She doesn’t let it distract her from what she came here for, though, and continues—even as she spins a little back and forth—“I just didn’t want you to be… any more stressed out??”

Anna hesitates before she answers, taking another drink of her perfect coffee to buy herself some time. Not worrying her daughter while also not lying to her daughter’s face is a balance she’s still learning to walk. “…just a lot of work,” is what she tells Poppi, when she’s finished her drink. “And I suppose Citan breathing down my neck isn’t helping my mood at all, either. But—the coffee helps, really. I appreciate it.”

“That’s good,” Poppi says, then her expression darkens, scowling at something on Anna’s desk, though the distant expression of her eyes implies it’s not what she’s scowling at that she actually has a problem with. “Is he… really that bad?” she asks, quietly. “Mythra complains about him all the time…”

“Who, Citan?”

Poppi nods. Anna makes a dissatisfied hum.

“He’s just…” she begins, but isn’t sure how to finish.

“…you can say asshole, you know,” Poppi says, quiet, and Anna laughs. Keeping her language clean was _not_ what was stopping her, but the fact that Poppi assumes that makes her fond.

“I was thinking bitch, actually,” Anna admits. Then she shakes her head, at a loss. All of her complaints about Citan are things that she isn’t sure she wants to burden her daughter with. The less she knows about what he said about her the better. “He’s just. Ugh.”

“Got it,” Poppi laughs. “Sorry he stresses you out.”

She’s trying, and it’s cute, really. Anna appreciates it.

Anna sets her coffee mug down on her desk, glancing idly at the calculations still displayed on her screen, calculations that she’s _supposed_ to be doing. …Well, they can wait. Poppi’s here, and Anna thinks her daughter is probably five times more important than her work.

“How… How are you doing?” Anna asks, carefully, as she turns to Poppi. “ _You_ aren’t… y’know…” Actually, asking a kid if they’re stressed seems weird? Maybe she shouldn’t…

Poppi seems to understand the question, though, and she’s still smiling.

“I’m okay,” she insists. “After all, I’m not the one who has to do all the work! And- And—” She bounces a little, with excitement. “I mean, if you guys have to make another blade, then, I’ll have a little sibling, right?”

Anna blinks, and then laughs, startled and fond all at once. She wonders if her moms felt this way, when she asked them about wanting a little sibling, all those years ago.

“I- Yeah, that’s true,” Anna says. “You will.”

“Do you think I could help name them?”

Anna doesn’t even hesitate.

“Yes. Absolutely. You get first pick.”

**\- - -**

_(Meanwhile, the committee deliberates._

_“Aegis or not, that prototype is walking liability.”_

_“Imagine if Sylvarant were to get their hands on that technology.”_

_“Not that it would be any more under their control than it is ours.”_

_“I suppose this is what we get, asking four scientists with no military training to do a job, and then refusing to give them specifics. The blame rests on us as well as them.”_

_“If they had known the specifics, they would have refused the job.”_

_“Well it’s too late for that, now. Rumors have spread. We need an Aegis to show, or the public will get even more restless than they already are. And, lest we forget that Sylvarant likely already has an Aegis of their own in the making—we know they have Martel’s shards.”_

_“And what do we do with the prototype?”_

_“Didn’t you hear me? It’s a liability. If even a scrap of it remains…”_

_“Understood.”)_

\- - -

Her ether furnace has been turned off for maintenance, so Poppi sits, eyes closed and inert in a chair nestled into the corner of the test room. If she were awake, she might have turned to the door opening. If she were awake, she might have realized something was wrong.

“Well, Jade?” Citan asks, turning to his blade, as the door shuts behind the two of them.

Jade hesitates.

He’s done a lot of horrible things, either because he curious, or because Citan told him to.

But this?

This is one he cannot do.

He turns his head away from sleeping Aegis prototype and his driver, both.

Citan watches him a second longer, then sighs.

“Fine, I’ll do it myself,” he says, and he summons Jade’s spear.

( _For as thoroughly as the shock of her death writes itself against his ether, Jade might as well have been the one to deal the killing blow._ )

_\- - -_

They’re all gathered in the communal kitchen area of the lab, waiting for Klaus to arrive so Jade can deliver whatever news he was sent here with, news that none of them figure is worth waking Mythra for, given the time of morning. Jade stands motionless at the table in the center of the room, the door behind him. He hasn’t responded to any of Galea’s or Anna’s gentle ribbing, which might make Anna nervous if she wasn’t distracted by the way she’s draped around Myyah right now. Myyah was already sitting at one of the table’s chairs opposite Jade, and why should Anna pull up a chair of her own when she can just lean against the back of Myyah’s, rest her chin on Myyah’s shoulder, drape her arms around Myyah’s neck. Myyah leans into the touch, fingers tracing patterns over Anna’s skin in a delightfully distracting way that Anna _might just_ have to do something about when they’re done here. Galea, meanwhile, leans against the counter to Anna’s left, nursing a cup of coffee.

“Alright, I’m here,” Klaus says, sliding into the kitchen. He slips around Jade, but just stands to Anna’s right, not moving much further, fidgeting a little. “Have—None of you have seen Poppi, have you?”

“I,” Anna says, feeling much like Klaus just kicked her in the stomach.

“No…?” Myyah says, her fingers closing around Anna’s arms. “I didn’t realize she was missing.”

“You were the one who saw her last,” Galea accuses, a little sharp. “Don’t tell me you _lost_ her.”

“The ether furnace needed re-tuning, so I’d powered her down and removed it so I could fiddle with it, and I’d intended to reinstall it this morning, but—” Klaus glares at Galea, who looks about ready to throw hands. “She wasn’t where I left her! That is _not_ my fault—”

Galea opens her mouth.

“Ahem,” Jade interjects.

“Actually,” Anna says, before he can continue. “I think whatever it is Citan wants you to tell us can wait, if Poppi’s missing—”

“Unfortunately, I have the answer to your questions,” Jade cuts in, and Anna closes her mouth. Myyah clings to her a little tighter. “Know that I hold no pleasure cutting to the chase like this, but…” Instead of speaking further, Jade reaches out and places something on the table. There’s the soft _thunk_ of something heavy meeting the table’s wood, and then Jade pulls his hand away,

Revealing two distinct pieces of a core crystal that pulses faintly orange.

Anna’s heart catches in her mouth.

“No,” she stammers, vision swimming. “No no no no no,” and it is only the sound of Galea’s mug shattering as she drops it, only Myyah’s tight grip on her wrists, Myyah’s warm skin against hers, that keeps her grounded where she is and not—

_her son’s cold hand in hers, watching him bleed out she can’t even DO anything to heal him all she can do is cling as he fades away from her, all she can do is stare at numbers on a page and know that he is dead even though she did not get to see him die_

“—Who did this?” Myyah demands.

“It was the committee’s decision,” Jade says. He isn’t smiling.

“That’s—bullshit,” Galea stammers. She sends a look down at the broken mug at her feet, hisses a little at the spilled coffee, but only steps over it and towards the table, to Poppi’s broken core crystal. “That’s, why would they—”

“They didn’t even _consult us_!” Klaus spits, as makes his way to the table and slams his palms against it, inches between his fingers and Poppi’s core crystal, like he’s afraid to touch it, afraid to disturb her ghost.

“They deemed the technology too dangerous to leave functional. A ‘liability’, if I recall correctly,” Jade says.

“But she- she’s just— _she was just!!_ ” Anna stammers, unable to get the words out of her throat. A child, a child, _a child, she was just a child—!_

_why why why WHY does she keep outliving her children_

“Who killed her? Was it Citan?” Myyah asks, cold, and her voice anchors Anna again, even as she pushes Anna’s arms off of her so that she can sit up straighter, square her shoulders and sit tall as she glares Jade down.

“It was the committee’s decision.”

“ _Was it Citan,”_ Myyah repeats, then cocks her head. “Or was it you?”

“There’s no need to shoot the messenger.”

“ _Jade._ ”

“It won’t make you feel any better, knowing.”

That’s a dodgy answer if Anna’s ever heard one, and Myyah tenses like she knows that as well but Anna’s—Anna’s honestly too busy trying to choke down the sickness in her chest to decide if she wants to be mad or Jade or not. She can’t pull her eyes away from the broken pieces of Poppi’s core crystal on the table. She can’t. She can’t. She can’t get the taste of blood out of her mouth. She can’t stop her hands from trembling. She can hardly hold onto this moment, hardly _breathe_ around her grief. It’s not fair and it’s _infuriating_ that her daughter is _dead_ and all her mind wants to do is play back memories that _aren’t fucking hers_ and and and and—

 _CRACK_ goes a door in the distance, from the direction of the bedrooms— Oh, Architect, _Mythra._ Mythra doesn’t _fucking know_ but she’s probably drowning in Galea’s grief right now and—

Anna clings to Myyah’s shoulder, clings in the thundering absence of voice as they all wait, horrified, for Mythra to find them. Mythra skids into the kitchen, then comes to a complete halt as soon as her eyes find the table, find _Poppi’s core crystal_ laid dull and broken across it.

“No,” Mythra says, quiet, as she takes a step back. “No, I’d- I’d hoped Foresight was wrong- I-” With each word, she gets a little louder, a little more desperate. “ _NO!_ ” she screeches. Stumbling, she crosses the last distance between her and the table—or rather, her and Jade, though the table remains between them. “What’d she ever do to you!?” she demands

Jade holds up his hands. “The committee…” he begins.

“ _What’d she ever do to ANYONE!?”_ Mythra cries, her hands finding the underside of the table like maybe she wants to throw it, like the only thing keeping her from doing so is the fact she’d have to upend Poppi’s broken core crystal as well.

Klaus looks at his daughter, standing just inches from him. “I don’t think she did anything other than exist, unfortunately,” he says, sharp and cynical.

“That’s not _fucking fair_!”

“It’s not,” Klaus agrees, apparently the only one of them who has a voice, right now. If Anna didn’t feel so fucking dizzy, inches away from sliding into another reality entirely, maybe she could find hers, but she’s too busy trying to stop feeling like her _hands are covered in blood._

Mythra heaves a sob, claps a hand over her mouth to choke it, bent over the table as she tries to swallow her horror. Galea’s still rooted to the spot, but honestly, Anna can’t blame her. They all seem to be frozen where they are. Even Jade, watching them all; his posture tired, resigned.

“The committee wants us to keep working, don’t they?” Myyah asks, quiet, like she’s unsurprised even if she’s furious.

Klaus scoffs. “Oh, I’m sure they do.” He leans a little more against the table, not bumping Mythra, still staring at Poppi’s broken core crystal. “They’d just _love_ for us to make them another artificial Aegis for them to kill, wouldn’t they?” His head snaps up, his laugh angry. “I understand that sometimes progress requires sacrifice, but _this_ —”

“This isn’t sacrifice, it’s slaughter,” Galea insists. “And I won’t stand for it.”

“Unfortunately,” Jade begins.

“What?” Anna demands, her voice snapping back into her throat. Her head still spins, drums beating an angry song against her skull. It gives her strength as much as it disorients her. “They won’t let us quit?” She scoffs. “Literally _what’s_ keeping me from walking out the door right now, huh? _What’s_ keeping me from walking?”

She pushes herself off of Myyah’s chair and starts moving. The front doors of the lab are _right there,_ just off the kitchen, so Anna crosses the distance towards them. She feels her coworker’s eyes on her like needles in her veins. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t fucking matter. _None of this fucking matters_ —

“I wouldn’t bother,” Jade calls after her.

Anna laughs, outraged, and rounds on him. “And why not? And why _fucking_ not?” Her hand finds the handle, and she yanks the door open and towards her, always having a fondness for timing as dramatic as she can possibly make it. “Door’s open! I can just _fucking go_ —”

Someone clears their throat.

Anna turns away from Jade to the door, then backpedals when she comes face to face with three Tethe’allan soldiers, all decked out in full military gear.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Anna says.

One of the soldiers grins and cocks her head to the side. “Ever hear of house arrest?”

“You can’t just—” Anna splutters, her chest tight, _fury fury fury_ a warsong in her bones. “ _Who_ fucking authorized—”

“The committee did,” comes Jade’s voice, steady, from behind her.

“This is stupid,” Mythra says, and Anna turns just in time to see Mythra call her sword to her. “Like _that’s_ going to stop us!” She vaults over the table, and—

Anna doesn’t even see Jade _move,_ she just blinks and then Mythra is sprawling across the floor, and Jade is dismissing his spear, the air still sharp and cold with his ether.

“Come now, Mythra, there’s no need to be childish,” Jade says, reproachful.

Immediately after he says it, Jade makes a face like he’s just swallowed a bug, but Anna’s attention is immediately pulled back to Mythra. Ether flares around her, bright and terrible as she scrambles to her feet. “ _Childish!?_ ” Mythra snaps back. She looks shaken. Furious. About ready to heft that sword of hers and run Jade through. But for as sick as Jade looks, he raises his eyebrows at her, a clear question on whether or not she really wants to try that, and surprisingly, Mythra backs down.

Not that she looks happy about it.

“This- this isn’t _childish!_ ” she splutters. “You can’t just lock us up!”

“Unfortunately, locking you in here is well within the committee’s authority,” Jade says, sighing. “I’m afraid they fear your knowledge getting to Sylvarant.”

Anna swallows, tight, _horror horror horror_ gripping her like chains around her wrists.

“And—let me guess,” Klaus says, with a bitter, manic little laugh. “They want their Aegis too badly to let us go, anyway. At least, not until we’ve produced something that they like.”

“That’s on the nose, I’m afraid,” Jade agrees.

“And if we refuse to work?” Myyah asks.

“Then you’re more use to them dead.”


	2. Chapter 2

It’s been two weeks since they killed Poppi.

To another, the weeks might have passed in a blur, a grief-induced fugue state. To Jade, they pass by crystal clear, seconds ticking by like an incrementing counter of guilt. Guilt, but not grief. He wonders what the fact he can plod through mountains of paperwork unhindered says about his psyche.

He’s working on said paperwork now when his door opens. Jade doesn’t _need_ to look up to see who it is, because the resonance link in his core sings with his driver’s proximity, and the fact the door opened without anyone bothering to knock first means it’s Citan, anyway. But it is precisely _because_ it’s Citan that Jade looks up, because Jade cannot trust anyone, and he especially cannot trust his driver. After all, if Citan wanted him dead, it’s not like there are any witnesses right now.

Thankfully Citan isn’t armed, so he probably isn’t here to kill Jade. Not that Jade would put the man above doing something as horrible as summoning Jade’s own spear to murder him with, which is a fun little thought to entertain while he fixes his driver with the most pleasant smile he possibly can.

“Was there something you needed, sir?” he asks, politely. If there’s an edge in his tone, well, isn’t there always? He hasn’t spent the past three years pretending he _didn’t_ have any sass. He’s learned by now that Citan doesn’t care much about his attitude, so long as he gets the job done.

Citan’s expression speaks of bad news before he even opens his mouth. After all, Citan has basically two moods. Insufferably smug that everything is going exactly as he wants it to, or petulant because it isn’t. He’s petulant, right now, and even though Jade desperately wishes that wasn’t his problem, it _is_ his problem, because Citan’s going to make it his problem. ( _And even if Citan didn’t explicitly make it his problem, it would still be his problem, because if too many things go wrong, who does Citan blame? Jade, of course._ )

“It’s been two weeks,” Citan sighs, and then leaves Jade to figure out what exactly he is referring to as he fiddles with his absurd glasses.

Unfortunately it’s not hard to deduce, seeing as they were apparently both thinking about the same thing. Disgusting.

It’s been two weeks since they killed Poppi, and so subsequently, two weeks without any real progress having been made on the Artificial Aegis Project. That’s to be expected, but apparently the pace is too slow for Citan’s liking. Unfortunately that isn’t a surprise, either. Jade wishes he could quip about how he’s not the babysitter of anyone on the project, except he is, because Citan is, except Citan shirked all responsibilities and left them to Jade.

So instead Jade just pinches the bridge of his nose above his glasses and breathes very, _very_ deeply, keeping his annoyance far away from his tone and the emotion bleed.

“They’re grieving,” he says very carefully. “It only makes sense that things are slow, right now. Give them time.”

Citan scoffs, dismissive, the emotion bleed singing with an exasperated disbelief. “Grieving a blade? Next you’ll tell me the sky is green.”

Jade thinks it’s very lucky he was gripping the bridge of his nose and not the bridge of his glasses, because otherwise he would have snapped his glasses in half.

Logically he thinks maybe he should be afraid, hearing Citan say such a thing so casually, but all Jade really feels is angry. He’s so angry he can’t think, for a second or two. The only thing roaring in his core is a fury he’s not sure how to choke down but wraps his hands around the throat of anyway. He doesn’t know if Citan was deliberately trying to rile him up or is just _that much_ of an asshole, but either way he does not take the bait. He cannot take the bait.

He thinks about it, though, just for a second. Thinks about his spear slammed through Citan’s chest, quick and clean and furious. Thinks about how _easy_ it would be. Yes, Citan’s reflexes are good, but he is unarmed and not expecting it and if Jade is fast…

It’s all well and good minus the fact killing Citan would be suicide.

Jade doesn’t want to die. Of course he doesn’t.

He wants to remember. He wants to live.

He wants to live, in spite of, _because of,_ all the Jades who died before him.

And since blades don’t _get_ to be corporeal if they don’t have a driver anchoring them to the world, Jade stills his anger as well as he is able. As much as he wants to see Citan dead, it simply isn’t an option unless he can figure a way out of resonance. Pity he can only think of one, and the little he knows about it isn’t nearly enough to…

“Jade?” Citan asks, and Jade holds his breath.

Either Citan asked a question that Jade was too distracted to hear, or Jade was not as thorough about throttling the emotion bleed as he thought he was. And trying to determine what Citan thinks about the matter through emotion bleed alone is a fool’s errand. Citan’s end speaks only of roaring apathy.

Still, though, Jade can take a guess regarding what’s on Citan’s mind. ( _He knows in his core that he can make guesses like that with almost perfect accuracy, and despises himself for it._ )

“I suppose I could go over there and pester them, but I don’t anticipate getting any kind of results from such an endeavor, I’m afraid,” Jade says, smoothly. A mask of exasperation and disappointed certainty that it isn’t worth it is as easy to construct as breathing. He gently slides his fingers up his nose and tucks loose hair back behind his ear, practiced and perfect. He does not have to look at Citan if he is sighing over this fruitless idea.

“It probably would be a waste of time,” Citan agrees. He laughs to himself, idly fixing the cuff of his sleeve. “And I suppose I shouldn’t be so unkind. As ridiculous as it is, people often get sentimental over the most trivial things, don’t they? It’s just human nature. They’ll get over it.”

As if their daughter isn’t dead. As if they aren’t being made to start from scratch when they are at rock bottom. As if they are not being held prisoner in their own home.

“You’re right, they will eventually,” Jade answers, airily. He grits his teeth and keeps his smile carefully, perfectly neutral. He thinks maybe that will be the end of the conversation, and he can go back to his ( _Citan’s_ ) paperwork, but then the base alarm begins to blare.

 _“Code Epsilon, two count, northwestern quadrant!”_ comes the message over the intercom.

…or his friends could do something as stupid as try and escape. That could happen, too.

The entire base will be on that, now, and yet even still: “Jade, you wouldn’t mind taking care of that, would you?” Citan asks, all smug smiles that speak of how he isn’t asking, despite the way he chooses his words.

Jade sighs and gets to his feet.

“Of course, sir.”

\- - -

Mythra, full of restless anger and impatience, had just wanted to see if she could do it, honestly.

Anna, full of restless horror and an itch to be _anywhere but stuck in a cage,_ wasn’t going to let even the slimmest chance of freedom pass her by, so when Mythra knocked out the guards at the front door and started carving her path out of the base, Anna had followed.

Honestly it had been going pretty well until very suddenly it wasn’t.

Mythra had missed _one_ guard, one fucking guard—or, random employee? Not that it matters—hanging out in his office, and he saw them through the window and raised the alarm and—

When it rains it pours, doesn’t it?

Mythra goes to grab Anna’s hand to drag her out of the open, but the moment her fingers brush Anna’s wrist Anna twists and—Mythra isn’t sure actually, other than that a second later she’s staggering back clutching an aching nose. Shit, _fuck,_ ow?

“Anna,” she starts, her voice pitching upwards, alarm flaring in her core.

“Stay _away_ from me,” Anna hisses, all teeth. The way she holds herself is all wrong, eyes feral and body poised like she’s going to strike again—Architect, did _she_ hit Mythra? Since when did Anna know how to throw a punch?? She’s watching her peripherals as much as she’s watching Mythra, like something’s going to jump out and grab her at any moment, which is almost as unsettling as the way she considers Mythra like she _seriously_ considers Mythra to be a threat. “I am _not_ going back in a fucking cage!”

Anna’s voice is too tight, and Mythra recognizes what that means, recognizes what this is because it’s not the first time it’s happened but, fuck, _she’s_ not the one good at calming Anna down when she’s like this! Someone else always gets to it!

“Anna, come on, this isn’t the time—” Mythra tries, but. She gets distracted by the caustic heat burning against her fingers where they press up against her nose. She pulls her hand away and, of course the ether isn’t clinging to her skin, that’s not what ether _does,_ it’s not a liquid. The moment it hits air it starts fluttering away from her in little green particles and _fucking shit,_ Anna got her good if she’s _bleeding._

Also _fuck_ now isn’t the time for this, either, she was just saying that. She’s a blade, she’ll heal fine if she gives it time, no big deal. They need to _go!_

Which way, though? Back to the labs? The exit gate is pretty far from here and Mythra wasn’t planning to get that far anyway, not without Galea, but her plan to cut a path out and then head back to ferry everyone along it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be an option now, and—

It’s too late. Guards surround them with the heavy clang of armor and the singing ether signature of more blades than Mythra can take on at once. Anna screams something that doesn’t make any sense, and, there, striding over from the back of the pack is none other than fucking Jade. He looks tired, like maybe he doesn’t want to be doing this, but the point still stands Mythra _knows_ she can’t take him in a fight, _especially_ not while also protecting Anna and having this many other players on the field, _all_ _against her._

“Having fun?” Jade asks, sharp, disapproving.

Yeah, so much for getting out.

\- - -

Jade’s grip on her upper arm is tight, not quite painful but nearing it, especially given how damn _cold_ his hand is. Mythra grits her teeth and bears it, because Jade’s at least done her the favor of dragging her away before anyone _else_ could say anything. She’s not sure she could have taken the embarrassment, not that she much prefers being dragged around like she’s a _kid._ Jade might as well be dragging her back to the labs by her _ear,_ for how his attitude is!

“What the hell, Jade, I thought you were on our side!” Mythra spits, needing to say something, needing to _do_ something. She tries to shake him off, but it’s pointless. He’s not letting go. All there is to do is make sure she doesn’t _stumble_ to keep up with him and his stupidly long strides.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Jade answers, his tone all false levity. Ugh, she bets he’s smiling, even if she can’t properly see his face from this angle, what with his hair in the way and all.

“Oh fuck off,” Mythra groans. “You _are_ though, aren’t you? So what _gives_!”

“I would tell you the answer, but I’m not sure your core would survive the shock.”

Mythra rolls her eyes and Jade laughs, a short, pleased thing, like he does in fact think that’s the greatest joke he’s ever told. “What shock?” Mythra bites at him. “Everyone’s well aware you’re an asshole.”

“Wow, Mythra, I had no idea you thought so highly of me,” Jade says, brightly.

“Shut up, jackass.” And for all that his levity is infuriating her, it isn’t fooling her. His grip on her arm is still disgustingly cold. And frankly, she’s tired of it! “And let go of me, I’m not going anywhere.” She yanks her arm away from him, somewhat surprised that he lets her go. Good, though! “You _are_ an asshole, and you- was all this really necessary? Any of this? You could have at _least_ stopped what they did to Anna—”

Jade raises his eyebrows like _could-have-I?_ and Mythra stops, reflecting on that. Anna’d been—feral is the kindest word Mythra can think of, and subsequently she thinks maybe that blade using an arte to put Anna to sleep was the kindest thing they could have possibly done for her. Maybe whatever got all mixed up in Anna’s head will sort itself out while Anna sleeps.

Mythra’s… never seen her that bad before. It scares her more than she’d like to think about.

“Okay,” she admits, quiet, looking away from Jade. “Maybe you couldn’t have.”

“See,” Jade says.

“But, seriously,” Mythra continues, turning to Jade as they keep walking. Her thoughts catch up to her mouth, and she scowls. “Okay, fine, I _guess_ it makes sense you can’t just let us go, but… Are you _really_ sure you can’t?” she asks, looking up at him, not sure if she should aim for pleading or annoyed, not sure which her face is _actually_ making.

Jade hefts a short sigh like her asking is the greatest inconvenience he has ever faced. Mythra presses on:

“Like, c’mon, I know things between you and Citan are weird—”

A short note of tight displeasure, almost gone unnoticed.

“—but can’t you just talk him out of it? It can’t be _that_ hard.”

The way the light catches on Jade’s glasses when he turns to her completely obscures his eyes. His smile is sharp enough to cut flesh.

“You know what, you’re right! Shall I pencil it in right after I interview the Architect on how he created the Aegises, or before I have tea with Tethe’alla’s Queen? I _think_ she was planning on calling the whole project off, you know.”

Ugh! Mythra’s mood nosedives straight back into annoyance again. He’s _impossible._

“I was being serious,” she protests.

“As was I,” Jade answers. He relents after a second, though, sliding his glasses back up his nose with a finger and glaring back down the hallway. “Mythra, I don’t know what you want from me,” he says, and it _is_ seriously. “One blind eye in a nest full of hawks simply isn’t enough to escape. It would never work, and you’d be foolish to bank your hopes on _me_ to see it done. It would require—”

And then miraculously, he breaks off, like maybe he’s considering how to get it done. Mythra bites her tongue so she doesn’t interrupt him by saying something to make him change his mind, but she preens a little anyway, because she got him _thinking_ about it. Her plans are perfect, obviously, but Jade’s wicked smart, and he knows way more about the actual security of the base than Mythra does. If he can figure something out…

Actually, maybe she shouldn’t assume what’s going on in his head right now. Jade’s an enigma wrapped in a mystery, and all Mythra _really_ understands about him is that his humor’s fucking grim. But her family loves him, and she likes him, too, for all that he pisses her off. Sure, the house arrest thing sucks, and the Poppi thing…

…also sucks…

…but neither of those things are necessarily Jade’s fault? No he’s not falling over himself to help them out but that’s… Fine, Mythra guesses. Not ideal, but fine. She can’t blame him for that, not _really_ , even if she’s mad. Jade may be an asshole but she’s still pretty sure he’s on their side, despite how he’s expertly twisted out of admitting to it.

And…

“You should drop by the labs more often, if you can,” Mythra tells him, sidelong. She hates that she says _if you can_ but really means _if you’re allowed to,_ because the thought of Jade needing _permission_ makes her ether churn, sick. Mythra only ever needs Galea’s permission for, like… actually she can’t remember the last thing she asked permission for when she actually _needed_ it, instead of just being nice and checking in before she ate the last of Galea’s ice cream or whatever. “Unless us being locked in there means you can’t visit, for whatever reason.”

“Technically it doesn’t,” Jade admits. He’s smiling again.

“Well, then you should,” Mythra says. It’d break up the monotony, for sure. And maybe give them all something else to think about than…

Well…

( _Mythra isn’t about to start crying in front of_ Jade, _so she takes thoughts of Poppi and shoves them in a box, for now._ )

“They talk about you all the time, you know?” she adds, just so she has something else to think about.

“I shiver to think about what horrible things they say.”

 _Architect,_ it really would kill him to drop the act, wouldn’t it? Mythra groans even as she bites her tongue. “It’s not horrible!” she insists, because she can’t have him thinking otherwise. “Mostly they just complain about how we never see you, and how we miss you and…” There’s something shaky in her core as she talks, maybe from trying not to think about Poppi, maybe something else. “…how we’re worried about you…” she finds herself admitting, quiet.

Jade laughs. “Oh there’s no need to worry about me, I’m perfectly fine.”

“Cut the crap,” Mythra spits, something in her veins snapping, breaking under the perfect lilt of his laugh. She stops and she rounds on him, shaking. “You’re not okay! None of us are okay! _Poppi’s—_ she’s—she’s dead, and—everything _sucks_ right now! And you- your _driver_ —”

The words die in her mouth. Where does she even start?

Jade tilts his head, but he doesn’t look amused. “What about him?”

Under that piercing gaze, Mythra’s motivation dies, too. What’s she supposed to say? Like, it should be easy—it’s stupid that it’s _not_ easy, but. Telling another blade that you think their driver isn’t just an asshole, but probably abusive? Somehow it’s not easy at all. She _wants_ it to be _._ She wants it to be easy, because if blades don’t look after each other, who else will? Clearly, they can’t always count on the humans to do it. Citan’s proof of that.

But Mythra can’t get her mouth open to say it.

Flushing with embarrassment and frustration, what Mythra does instead is duck away from Jade and keep walking. They’re almost at the labs, anyway. The conversation can just be over, that’s fine too.

“Mythra.”

“ _What_?” she demands, stopping but not giving Jade anything more than a glance over her shoulder.

“If you really want to help your family, then you need to avoid doing anything stupid like this again,” Jade warns. It’s… terrifying, actually, how cold his voice can go in the absence of any of his usual levity. It’s like the snows of Sybak, or maybe colder than that, his expression hard.

Mythra wishes she could take his request seriously, but she can’t. Not that one.

“What do you want me to do instead?” she demands, not angry, but unyielding. “You want me to just sit around here and do _nothing?_ I can’t do that.” She can’t leave Galea in here. She can’t leave _any_ of them in here! “I’m _going_ to keep trying to find a way out of this. That’s a promise.”

Nothing can stop the sun’s path through the sky, after all.

Jade’s face twitches: he smiles, angry.

“Then it will be your funeral,” he declares.

And with a dramatic turn on his heel, he stalks away, leaving Mythra alone in the hall.

She appreciates that for a second or two—the labs are _close,_ but in the sense that they are around another corner or two, close. She is left unsupervised. She could just…

Go.

Of course she doesn’t have a plan for getting everyone else out of here, but maybe she could snoop around? Surveillance, maybe. Surely there’s somewhere with camera feeds of the base; she could use that to plot a better path out of here. The emotion bleed pings with concern from Galea, though, the resonance link tugged. She didn’t exactly _warn_ anyone that she was going. Galea’s probably worried about her…

Mythra sends reassurance back, just so Galea knows she’s—well, Galea knows she’s not _dead,_ because if she’d died then the resonance would have snapped entirely. Galea would have _definitely_ felt that. So the reassurance Mythra sends is more to let Galea know she’s _okay,_ that she hasn’t been _hurt_ or anything. ( _Her broken nose already feels much better, really!_ ) Mythra sends along a little confidence along while she’s at it, so Galea knows she’s got this, because she _does._ And then—

And then two guards, one carrying Anna over his shoulders, turn the corner and start making their way towards Mythra. Shit, she couldn’t have gotten a Foresight warning about _that_? Rude.

“Hey!” the guard _not_ carrying Anna calls, and Mythra groans. So much for going anywhere. Sure, she could take them, but managing _without_ hurting Anna would be difficult at best, and if they start making a bunch of noise Jade _will_ hear, and he’ll _probably_ just come back to tell Mythra he told her so or some shit, so.

“I know, I know,” Mythra says, putting up her hands. “I’m going.”

It’s surrender, but only temporarily.

\- - -

Anna wakes up in a bed.

She wasn’t expecting to wake up in a bed.

But once she realizes that, captures that thought, her mind stops, resets, and she’s left with the uncomfortable realization that for some fucking reason, she actually expected to wake up _in chains._ Why the hell—

_don’t think about it Anna don’t think about it don’t_

“Anna?” Myyah’s voice, timid. “Are you awake?”

Yes, she is. “Yeah, I am,” she says, pushing herself upright. She blinks against the harsh artificial lights of the lab, hating them more and more with each passing day—and it’s up at them she scowls more than she scowls at her girlfriend, who is sitting on the end of the bed.

“The year’s 2418, we’ve been dating for almost a year now.” Myyah’s voice, though quiet and somewhat tight, does not waver, each word said with perfect careful clarity. “I’m your girlfriend, Myyah—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Anna interjects, annoyed. “I got it, I’m here. I wish I wasn’t, though.”

She and Mythra had been… so close to getting out. And then some fucker tripped the alarm and then. And then it gets fuzzy. Anna doesn’t quite remember what happened after, and when she tries to she just gets a roaring wall of what tastes enough like fear that she doesn’t want to touch it, actually.

( _caged again she’s never getting out how much longer before they restart the experim—_

 _DON’T think about it Anna!_ )

She makes herself look at Myyah, instead.

Myyah’s… she’s not quite glaring, at Anna. But she looks… hurt? Why would she…

“Good, if you’re here, you can answer my questions,” Myyah says, still tight, and now does her voice waver a little. “Why did you _do_ that?”

Oh. That explains why she’s mad.

“We were worried sick, about you and Mythra both!” Myyah—doesn’t shout, but she grips the fabric of her pants, hands trembling. “Why would you _do_ that? They could have killed you!”

Anna scoffs, shakes her head, any of her regret sliding away when presented that accusation. “They want me alive to work.”

“They could have killed _Mythra_.”

Anna opens her mouth, but she doesn’t have words for that. They… They wouldn’t have, right?

( _If they had… how would Anna have faced Galea?_ )

“Look,” Anna begins, a little less sure.

Myyah talks right over her. “Was that really worth the risk, to you?”

Mythra’s life, no? But other than that…

“Yeah,” Anna says, even. “It was. I’m tired of being locked in here.”

The feeling of being caged makes her want to claw her skin off, and it’s only been two weeks. She doesn’t really want to see what any longer than two weeks is gonna do to her.

Myyah clearly wants to say something else, but she’s apparently having trouble finding the words.

“…just like that, huh?” she whispers.

“What?”

“You were going to go, just like that? You would have just left us behind?”

Myyah says _us,_ but from the pain in her eyes, Anna’s pretty sure she means _me._ And it—no, that _wasn’t_ the plan, except. Except it was, in a way. Because even if Mythra had gone back to get her parents, get Myyah… Anna… Well. Why would Anna go back for anyone or anything, if they’d made it as far as the exit? What point would there have been to her turning back? She certainly wasn’t _intending_ to.

So. She shrugs, but there’s nothing really apologetic in her when she answers:

“Myyah, I love you, I do. But if it were between you and freedom…”

She doesn’t say she’d pick freedom. She doesn’t have to.

In the same way, Myyah doesn’t have to say anything in answer. She simply rises to her feet and leaves the room. It gets the point across well enough.

Anna flops back into the bed and squeezes her eyes shut, hoping that in a few hours she’ll feel even a little less like shit.

\- - -

“Here you are,” Klaus says, just to get Anna’s attention before he gets any closer to her, given failure to do so lately often ends… badly. Anna looks up at him just long enough to nod; Klaus sets the coffee she asked for down on her desk. (Maybe he should say something about her drinking coffee at 2AM, but then, he is too. All of their sleep schedules have been a little off since… well.) She says a distracted thanks at him and he hums in reply, getting halfway through bringing his own mug to his lips to take a drink before he pauses, really taking in the work spreading across her computer’s screen.

“Is that… Mythra’s source code?”

“What?” Anna asks, eyes glued to the computer. “Oh, yeah.”

Interesting. “Any particular reason you’re dicking around in there?” Klaus asks, taking a drink while Anna answers.

“Thought of something, is all. I think I’ve almost got it figured out.”

She doesn’t explain what the ‘something’ or the ‘it’ is. Typical Anna. So typical, in fact, it gets barely a sigh of exasperation out of Klaus. He leans his hip against her desk, taking another sip of coffee. Architect knows he needs it, given how much sleep he isn’t getting.

“You know,” he says, smirking gently, “I seem to recall you ranting just last night about how you were never going to do ‘any more work for those fucking bastards’. Something change your mind?”

“It’s not for them, it’s for you.”

“For me?” Klaus repeats, not following, but then his eyes flicker over Anna’s screen again. “You mean for Mythra.”

“Same thing.”

“If you say so.”

Anna doesn’t say anything more, just mumbles to herself as she taps away at her keyboard. Klaus takes another sip of coffee. Anna’s might as well not exist, for the fact she hasn’t even glanced at it. In fact, for how little attention she’s regarding Klaus with—despite him leaning on her desk and making conversation with her—he might as well not exist, either. Whatever she’s working on must really have her attention.

“You going to tell me what it is?” Klaus asks, once he’s decided there’s no way she’s going to explain on her own.

“Oh.” Anna swivels in her chair, looking up at Klaus. She blinks a few times at him like she’s surprised to see him there. Or, more likely she’s adjusting her eyes to the relatively dim light around his face, after staring at her computer for so long. The lights _are_ off in this section of the labs, after all, for whatever reason. Anna probably just forgot to turn them on. Well, the light from the kitchen and the rest of the workspace is probably enough light, especially with her computer, so he can’t blame her.

“I figured out why blades lose their memories when they die,” Anna says.

As if that’s not the most important discovery of—all time, maybe? Sure, someone’s probably figured it out before Anna, but no written record in the world still holds the knowledge.

“Did you?” Klaus whispers, stunned. He feels a lot more awake, now.

Anna nods. “Yeah. Blades don’t naturally store memories in their core crystals, actually—or, they do, but it’s only like… procedural memory. Explains how they never forget how to use their weapon I guess. Anyway.” Spell broken now that she’s turned away from her computer, she realizes her coffee exists, and pauses here to take a long drink before she starts speaking again: faster, this time. “The rest of the memories go—honestly I don’t know where, but it’s external. Memories _might_ get stored in the core crystal temporarily, I don’t know that either. And I don’t know if it’s temporary memories getting wiped or access to permanent memories getting wiped or both when they die, let alone _why_ —”

“To save space, maybe,” Klaus offers, with a shrug.

Anna scowls, probably not enjoying the interruption. “Either way, I found a work around,” she says.

Okay, that is more interesting.

“Did you, now?”

“Yeah,” Anna says, and then: “You’ve patched Mythra before, right?”

It must be relevant, so Klaus answers instead of complaining: “Plenty of times. Getting her ether levels right was a lot of trial and error.” And there was at least once where she asked if he could make her stronger and he went _yeah okay_ and patched her for that, too. Why not?

“Cool, so, we could give her a _different_ external source for memories, and patch her so that she encodes them there, right? I figured out all the stuff for rerouting already, just haven’t figured out _where_ to put the memories…”

“There might be room in the core crystal itself,” Klaus answers, thoughtfully. At least for a couple hundred years’ worth of memories, anyway. “Plus, if memories _are_ temporarily being stored in the core crystal to begin with…” He trails off meaningfully, and Anna hums agreement. “I can have Galea look at it. Architect knows she’d rather be working on that than anything else. I’ll poke at it too—if anyone asks, well, an Aegis _is_ meant to remember, isn’t it.”

“Uh-huh,” Anna answers, distracted, eyes swiveling back to her computer screen even though the rest of her body faces Klaus. He’s not sure if the siren song of her ideas is calling her, or if it’s something else.

“Why the interest, though?” he asks, curious.

“Just,” Anna says. She scowls, much darker than normal. “The- the fact blades forget—that they could die before their time and forget you—it—” She breaks off and laughs, high and short and grieving. She’s not staring at her computer screen at all. Klaus moves, just slightly, not that he’s really sure what he’ll _do,_ but then Anna says, a little calmer: “It’s always bugged me.”

And then she turns to Klaus again, all of her attention, her smile still bitter but her eyes bright.

“Well, if I figured out how to fix that—better Mythra than… Ugh, I don’t even want to make another new blade if I don’t have to.”

“But if it works on Mythra, it should work on any other blade,” Klaus muses, only half-listening. They need their excuses for their bosses, after all.

“Sure,” Anna agrees. She sets her coffee mug back down on her desk and turns back to her screen.

“You mind writing up your changes so Galea and I can take a look?” Klaus asks, pushing the rest of the way off from her desk so he can start the walk back to his own.

“You got it.” Anna sends him a thumbs-up and starts typing.

Galea suggests something in the morning that makes them have to rewrite about half the code, but that’s just the way of things. Klaus is feeling pretty confident about it, in the end. It really could work.

\- - -

_Apply patch to mythra.zohar.exe?_

_Y_

_Applying…_

_12%... 37%... 58%... 96%..._

_Complete._

_Checking resonance…_

_Resonance stable…_

_Rebooting system…_

Mythra opens her eyes. She’s done this enough times before that she doesn’t really bother waiting for Galea’s okay before she sits up and yanks the wires away from her core crystal. She runs an internal diagnostic in her core—everything looks like it’s fine, changes all applied, she thinks.

“How do you feel?” Galea asks.

Mythra shrugs, rakes a hand through her hair to fix it. “Same as always. But that’s to be expected, right?” It’s not like this change affected anything concrete like her ether output.

Galea hums, brushing her hair out of her face as she bends over the computer again. Mythra stretches, working the kinks out of her shoulder from being inert for, what was it? An hour? Patches always take around that long. Well, there’s a thread of worry humming in the emotion bleed, and Mythra hates when her mother is worried, so she adds: “I think the changes took, if it makes you feel any better.”

“The question isn’t if they took, but if that actually solved the problem,” Galea argues, distracted, and that worry becomes something more like discomfort. Mythra swallows. Yeah, there’s uh… not really a way to _test_ that, huh?

Well. Not a way she’s comfortable with. Thankfully Galea wouldn’t ask that of her.

“I’m sure it’s fine, you guys always get things right first try!” Well, most things. Being honest isn’t the goal here, it’s the morale boost. Galea laughs, but it’s empty. Mythra hops off the table, goes to nudge Galea’s shoulder with her own. There’s _some_ kind of dark storm going on in her thoughts, and Mythra wants to pull her out of it, if she can.

Galea leans against Mythra in return, just a little. She sighs. “It’s not really the memory patch I’m worried about,” she admits. She’s smiling, but it’s bitter. “It’s just now that it’s done, I’ll have to get back to work on what the committee _actually_ wants. We all will.”

“Oh,” Mythra says. “You know what, I don’t think the patch quite took after all—”

Galea laughs. The emotion bleed bubbles, fond. “Mythra…” she says, shaking her head. “It’s alright, really.”

It’s not alright. Mythra’s not dumb. She can see that.

“If you don’t want to work—” she begins.

Galea cuts her off. “Sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to. Sometimes we don’t have a choice.”

More than anything, Mythra hates how _defeated_ her driver looks in that moment.

\- - -

She’s going to fix it.

\- - -

They can’t just _leave,_ of course. Mythra’s first attempt proved that to her. She’s just one blade, and if she couldn’t even protect _Anna,_ how is she supposed to protect all four of these squishy scientists long enough to get them off this base on her own? Short of killing literally everyone on this base, Mythra can’t think of a way to pull it off, and… killing everyone isn’t _really_ an option, in Mythra’s opinion. Are most of them complicit in keeping them locked up? Yeah, technically. Does that mean they should die? No, holy shit.

But Mythra can’t just sit around and do _nothing_ anymore, either.

No one wants to work? Fine! Why should they! What’s the point of creating another prototype, another _blade,_ just to let the committee—let _Citan_ —slaughter them when he decides the results are less-than-perfect? Mythra gets that. Mythra _more_ than gets that. Galea’s anger at the injustice has sat under her tongue since the day Poppi died, Galea’s grief has screamed in her chest since the night after. It’s so big and overwhelming that Mythra doesn’t know what to _do,_ she doesn’t know where her despair begins and Galea’s despair _ends,_ it’s just a constant shroud cast over her core, and…

She’s had enough.

She’s had enough of Anna jumping out of her skin at the slightest noise. She’s had enough of Myyah being distant, in denial. She’s had enough of Klaus barely sleeping, of Galea barely eating, and more than that she’s had _enough_ of tasting Galea’s fury in her mouth, tasting it and feeling it choked by an exhaustion that prevents anything from _happening,_ and…

( _“This isn’t sacrifice, this is slaughter, and I won’t stand for it!”_ )

Yeah, well, neither will Mythra.

In the dead of night, Mythra sneaks past every closed bedroom door and into the labs. It’s hard to say who’s awake right now, because Klaus and Anna’s sleep schedules have fucked right off from being normal. All Mythra knows is that Galea is asleep ( _the gaping, silent emotion bleed is almost worse than the too-full, too-loud one_ ) and that honestly she _doesn’t care._

Mythra summons her sword.

The committee’s going to make them work? Well, better make it so they _can’t._ Then they don’t have to.

Right?

( _If Galea cannot do anything with her fury, then it falls on Mythra to see it through._ )

She slams the edge of her sword through every computer in the room, upends Myyah’s desk. Monitors cave under the weight of her blade. Determination dragged across a whetstone, fury sending up sparks. She burns the data. Destroys the research. If they have nothing, then neither does the committee. If they have nothing, no one else gets hurt.

If they have nothing, no one else dies like—

“Mythra?”

“Oh,” Mythra says, turning around.

Klaus stands in the doorway, and it’s… it’s too dark to make out his face at this distance. It’s not like Mythra bothered turning on a light, after all. She’s a _blade._ Her ether lines and core crystal glow enough in the darkness that she could see well enough to do what she came here to do. Even now, the room remains cast in a muted green glow with her at the center. Which, of course, isn’t enough for _Klaus_ to see by, so it’s no surprise when he reaches over and flicks on the lights.

Mythra flinches, her insides eating themselves raw at the thought of Klaus’ disapproval.

“What were you…” he begins as he takes in the ruined lab, takes in the sight of Mythra’s sword still lodged in his workbench.

“Is there a problem?” Mythra says, shooting for deadpan instead of the gnawing fear she actually feels. If she even _thinks_ about the storm raging in her chest she’ll break under it. “None of you wanted to work, right? Now you don’t have to!”

( _She fixed it!!_

 _She fixed it, right?!_ )

“Mythra…” Klaus sighs, running a hand over his face. Mythra hates to see him so tired. “It doesn’t… it doesn’t work like that. We don’t just get to _opt out_ of working.”

“Why not? I mean, you don’t have any of your stuff—”

“I don’t think that’s going to change anything. Once they replace the hardware, we’ll just have to… start over.”

Klaus doesn’t _say_ just how much effort starting over from scratch is going to be, but Mythra sees the sag of his shoulders, and—( _what has she done?!_ )—the storm in her chest threatens to break her if she doesn’t break it first—( _no no no this can’t have been for NOTHING it had to have MEANT SOMETHING_ )—

“Can’t you guys, just- Go on strike? Or something?” Mythra asks, grasping for air the same way she grasps for straws. “I mean if- they can’t _make_ you work! What if you just… don’t. Can’t you do that?”

Klaus shrugs, his face set. “Well, it won’t get us out of here,” he says, simple. “And I seem to recall Jade implying the committee was perfectly willing to kill us if we chose not to work.”

Mythra… remembers that, too.

“But- but you _can’t_ work! You all hate it, and—if—” Poppi’s broken core crystal on the table, the horror of knowing her little sister was _never going to wake up again,_ the weight of it all threatens to crush Mythra’s lungs in a vice; she reaches over and grabs her sword for support—it flares green and bright with her ether and her frustration the moment her fingers are on it. “If you keep getting it wrong, they’ll— _I don’t want anyone else dying._ ”

“Then we’ll have to get it right, next time,” Klaus says.

“How can you be so- so _uncaring_?” Mythra demands, furious. “How can you _want_ to make another blade for them? They killed Poppi and- and even if they hadn’t—”

Klaus leans against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. His expression is disgusted, his humor sharp. “It’s not like there’s another option, Mythra. I don’t want to find out if they’re actually willing to kill us.”

“Then we should _leave_ ,” Mythra says, tears of frustration stinging in her eyes. She knows it won’t work. Of course it won’t work.

“We can’t,” Klaus begins.

“If we get lucky—”

It won’t work, none of this will work, but Mythra squeezes her eyes shut and pushes Foresight anyway, trying to get it to tell her more than the few minutes it’s capable of. She pushes it and she thinks about escaping, about their chances of succeeding if they try, if they go _right now,_ then maybe…

( _She gets an image of Jade knocking on her door, and then nothing._

_Whatever the hell that means._

_She doesn’t even know how far in the future that_ is!)

Sparks of pain shoot off behind her eyes, and Mythra staggers, clutching at her head with the hand that isn’t still holding her sword. Of course, given how she’s pushed her ether much further than she’s _meant_ to, the sword flickers and vanishes against her will, because she doesn’t have enough ether to keep that physical anymore. She’ll be fine in a few minutes, but until then she swears under her breath and collapses ungracefully into the remains of Klaus’ workbench, kneading at her forehead to offset her blinding headache.

“Mythra?” Klaus’ voice is concerned, and his approaching footsteps follow a moment later.

“I’m fine,” she snaps. A lie? Maybe. Who cares.

Klaus sits down next to her. “Mythra,” he says again.

“It’s just so _stupid!_ ” Mythra screams. “What’s the point of Foresight if it doesn’t—I can’t see far enough into the future for it to be any _use!_ I hate it!”

Klaus rests a hand on her shoulder. Mythra trembles with the strength of the emotions shrieking in her core; the fury, the _helplessness._ She can’t fix it. She can’t get them out of here. She can’t do anything.

Klaus tugs her gently into a half-armed hug; she doesn’t resist.

“I just…!” she starts, but can’t get any words out.

“I know,” Klaus tells her. Maybe he does. Maybe he’s just saying it.

Mythra doesn’t care. Her feelings are too big at this point to successfully put into words and there’s no _point_ in trying to articulate them anyway because neither her nor Klaus can _fix_ the problem. Everything just sucks. End of story.

But at least they have each other. So… Mythra just lets Klaus hold her.

\- - -

Jade isn’t surprised when he gets the news. Of course he isn’t surprised. Oh, he’s disappointed, near-furious that Mythra didn’t take his advice seriously, but is he surprised? No.

( _Over a year of work all lost in a single night? His core aches for how much that was. Did Mythra even realize? Was she thinking? Probably not. He’s not surprised by that, either.)_

“If she’s going to keep acting out like this, then she’s nothing more than a liability,” Citan says, hand supporting his chin, leaning on his desk.

“I suppose so,” Jade agrees, because he’s supposed to. He feels like it’s another blade saying the words. Like someone else stole the name Jade and the body he’s inhabiting and said the words for him.

( _He wonders if kinder judgement would have been passed had all Mythra done was try and break out again._ )

Citan turns to him, eyebrows raised, unbothered. “You can take care of this, can’t you?”

Jade’s core stops.

“Of course, sir.” Is that really him saying that? It’s his voice that speaks, it’s his mouth that smiles, but… “If you want it done with discretion, then I will need—”

“So by tonight, then?”

“…Yes, sir.”

\- - -

Jade first returns to his room to—well, there is nothing to prepare, so he’ll just be honest with himself. He’s stalling. It would probably hurt less if he just went and got it over and done with, but he would like to avoid murdering Mythra in front of his friends… Can he even call them his friends? It’s not like he’s been very friendly, and he doubts they’ll forgive him for this, if they find out.

( _Of course they’ll find out. Galea will feel it the moment Mythra dies._ )

And since he doesn’t want to do it while they’re all watching, the best thing to do is wait until the dead of night and hope that they all actually are asleep at that time. If they aren’t… well, he’ll have to come up with a contingency plan. The good news is that his mind is already working to provide him options, but the mere fact it is, _the fact that this is a thing he has to consider,_ nearly makes him sick.

In a fit of rage, Jade snarls and kicks his chair over. He doesn’t want to do it. _He doesn’t want to do it._

His rage is met with a flare of surprise from the end of the emotion bleed that usually only sings with apathy. Jade stops breathing, just long enough to take stock of the crystal clear taste of Citan’s surprise turning into amusement before that too abates with disinterest. Rage kindles in Jade’s core anew, and he has half a mind to break the damned chair just to _do_ something with all that rage.

Instead he collapses against his desk, one hand yanking painfully through his own hair, the other bracing his weight. He’s shaking. The temperature of the room must have dropped several degrees, with how much ether he’s outputting, but Jade doesn’t feel the chill.

This would not be the first time Citan has asked him to kill and he’s killed. There have been others, names Jade doesn’t remember simply because they were unimportant; though there is undoubtedly more blood on his hands than he _can_ remember, for lifetimes’ worth of people that Citan wanted dead and Jade was the most convenient tool to see the deed done. None of those truly mattered, though. Jade couldn’t have cared less, other than about the fact he despised doing Citan’s dirty work.

But Mythra? Jade _likes_ Mythra.

And she’s just… another blade like him. A blade who stepped out of line. A blade that Citan has deemed would be less of a problem if she was without her memories, if she was out of the picture.

He doesn’t want to kill her.

\- - -

He does it, of course.

What choice does he have?

\- - -

Feeling a resonance snap is a sensation so horrible, so painful, that it easily wakes up Galea from a dead sleep. Confusion hits her first, as she bolts upright in bed. Then shock, near stopping her heart. The corner of her mind where Mythra’s presence sits—it’s silent. It’s empty.

She’s gone.

She’s _dead._

Adrenaline finally kickstarts Galea’s heart, and she throws the blankets off of her, staggering out of bed. Where was Mythra last? How did she die? Galea wishes she’d been awake because then she would have known a general direction that Mythra had last been in, told to her by the resonance link that has now snapped. Galea wishes she’d been awake, because then maybe she could have _saved her daughter._

( _She doesn’t even know if Mythra died—scared? Angry? There is no aftertaste, just emptiness._ )

She stumbles out into the hallway and she spots Jade making his way towards the exit. The hell is he doing here at _this_ time of night!?—she wonders, as if she cannot guess.

Mythra’s dead, after all.

And Jade is limping.

“Jade!” Galea screams after him, marching down the length of the hallway to meet him as he turns, reluctantly. The air is freezing cold, and only gets colder as the closer she gets to Jade. He’s favoring his left leg. In the dim hallway, the glowing red ether particles that bleed out of him from somewhere around the vicinity of his thigh might as well be fireworks.

( _Very, very distantly, Galea is proud Mythra made him work for it._ )

“Galea,” Jade says, pleasantly, but something about his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Did you need something?”

“Where’s Mythra?” Galea asks, unable to hold down the heat in her voice, anger echoing within an empty resonance.

“I don’t know, I haven’t seen her.” A blatant lie.

Galea takes a step forward, unable to stop herself. “What did you _do?_ ”

Jade does not step away from her, but he does stare at her for a long moment, mouth partly open as he seems to start a thought but finds himself incapable of finishing it with his tongue. He stays like that for a long beat, longer than Galea’s ever seen him speechless before, and—

His mouth twitches. Back into a smile.

“A blade’s duty is to fulfill its driver’s wishes, is it not?” Jade asks.

It punches Galea in the gut. Knocks the wind right out of her sails.

Jade smiles a little wider. “A blade’s purpose is dictated by its driver, after all,” he says.

And Galea understands.

Everything.

“Jade,” she begins.

He hesitates another few moments—moments which Galea could fill but does not know how to. She has no words, her horror and her grief raging too loudly in her chest for her to _think_ , let alone speak. Finally, Jade’s smile falters, his expression darkening. He reaches into his pocket and from it produces…

Mythra’s core crystal.

The fact Jade has to grab her hand to press the core crystal into her palm perhaps speaks to how stunned Galea is at the moment.

Was he going to take this with him? Back to Citan? Why is he changing his mind?

She opens her mouth to ask literally any of these things, but Jade speaks over her.

“Make sure she doesn’t get so out of hand, this time,” Jade tells her.

She doesn’t have the words to reply before he’s gone.

\- - -

Citan looks up when Jade enters his office and closes the door behind him. Jade makes something that might pass as eye contact with his driver, his weight still shifted to favor his left leg.

“The job is done,” Jade reports, followed immediately by: “I’m taking the next two days off to heal, this is nonnegotiable.” Two days should be plenty of time; he’s a blade, after all. Blades heal much faster than humans do.

Citan raises his eyebrows at Jade. Jade does not crack, exactly, but he does allow:

“I can still do paperwork. No errands.”

Citan shrugs, appeased with that. “That’s fine, then.”

It’s hard to tell whether he’s happy or if he minds; the emotion bleed sings with its constant apathy.

It doesn’t matter. That’s all Jade needs of his driver.

He makes to go, but Citan’s voice stops him.

“Jade? Her core crystal?”

“Hm?” Jade asks, as if he does not understand the question. (He does.)

“Where is it?”

“You didn’t tell me to bring it back.”

Citan’s eyes narrow.

“I thought ‘getting rid of her’ implied that she shouldn’t be _left_ with them.”

It did. Jade was deliberately ignoring that. He grits his teeth. Smiles as well as he is able when his core feels neither settled nor wholly present.

“I assumed wiping her memories would simply be enough.”

Citan scoffs. “With how they spoil her? Absolutely not.”

Jade chokes the anger he feels, as well as the grief. He contemplates committing a second murder today, which serves as a nice distraction. Somehow, he’s still smiling.

“Well,” Jade says, “I don’t think I could demand it back from them.” If he shows back up to take it after returning it to Galea as he had… “It’s not like I have authority to just throw around, as you do.”

“I suppose not.” Citan sighs, and pushes himself to his feet. “I’ll take care of it, then.”

Jade smiles as his driver passes, and tries not to feel the roar of despair that sits in his core.

\- - -

Mythra’s core crystal sits on the kitchen table right next to the spot where Galea sets her coffee mug down. She’s sitting at the table, Klaus is sitting at the adjacent end, and Anna is on the opposite side of the table from Galea, leaning her weight against it rather than sitting. Meanwhile, Myyah prepares another pot of coffee for them.

“Well…” Anna says, slowly, tapping her fingers against her empty mug. Her eyes are fixed on Mythra’s core crystal—still dark, because Mythra isn’t ready to wake back up, yet. “I guess that’s one way to test the memory patch. Not, like, the ideal way,” and she laughs, slightly off-kilter ( _but most everything about Anna has been off-kilter, lately, so Galea barely notices_ ), “but still. It’ll, uh… Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Galea agrees, sighing. It’s not… great, but if their memory patch works the way it’s supposed to, it won’t matter.

And if it doesn’t work, well.

Galea tries not to think about the _if it doesn’t work_ , but it eats at her, anyway. The thought of Mythra not remembering her, having to build their relationship over from scratch, _having to explain to Mythra all that she has forgotten about this situation._ From the way Anna grips her coffee mug, it’s bothering her a lot, too.

“When she wakes up and remembers, she’ll bitch, and then yell at me for caring more about the research than her, just like always,” Klaus insists, with a forced optimism that he’s been carrying since Galea woke him up four hours ago. He gratefully takes his refilled mug from Myyah, and Galea shoves down the pang of guilt she feels over how little sleep Klaus has gotten today. “And then maybe she can tell us what exactly—”

Anna startles abruptly, her attention swinging towards the labs’ front door, her eyes wide. It takes Galea a second of focusing to hear what Anna hears: the shifting of metal armor, then the voices of their guards, and is that…?

Galea rises to her feet and turns around to face the doors, her hand moving to protectively grip Mythra’s core crystal. Anger boils in her blood as their _fucking boss_ steps into the room.

“Oh, good, you’re all here,” Citan says. “That makes my life easier.”

“What do you want?” Galea demands.

“Coffee?” Myyah offers, people-pleaser that she is. Galea shoots her a glare like death. Myyah just smiles tight and polite, eyes fixed on Citan. He smiles back, uninterested, and waves her offer away.

“No, thank you, I don’t intend to be here long.”

“Why come at all, then, instead of sending Jade?” Klaus asks, bitter and sharp. “You don’t seem to have problems sending him for everything else.” The tightness of his tone speaks of rage only-just held in check—as if Galea does not remember how he threatened to march over to Citan’s side of base and smother the man in his sleep just hours earlier.

“Jade requested the day off,” Citan answers, examining his fingernails. “I saw no reason not to give it to him. We all need a little vacation time, don’t we?”

Klaus scoffs. Anna lets out a bark of angry laughter as Myyah ducks her head down. Galea breathes against the anger that fills the emptiness where Mythra once was in her mind. She cannot _believe_ this man. Does he get off on being a dick, or something?

“Oh I’d _love_ vacation time,” Anna spits, murderous, “but last I checked we’re all _locked in here_.”

“Yes, well,” Citan says, like he couldn’t possibly care less about that. “I’ll be out of your hair in a second, I just came to retrieve Mythra’s core crystal.”

Galea’s insides turn cold. She grips the core crystal tighter.

“What?” Her voice is distant, face hot with her anger. “Why do you—”

“Well it’s clear I can’t trust you with it.”

“ _Excuse me?_ ”

“Is that why you killed her?” Klaus interjects, and it’s the only thing that keeps Galea from drowning in how insulted she is, how _furious_ she is, and more than that the resounding silence in her veins where Mythra’s mirrored fury normally would sing in tandem.

Citan shrugs. “She was a liability,” he says, in the exact kind of tone one would use to discuss the weather when they found the forecasted rain to be particularly bothersome. “As is everyone else on the project, frankly, but blades are more prone to act out, aren’t they? Especially when their driver never bothers to teach them their place.”

Galea sees red. Fury echoes too loudly in her too-empty head. She’s dropping Mythra’s core crystal and moving before she thinks. Arm pulled back. Fist clenched. She doesn’t care—she throws a punch right at Citan’s face.

And Citan sidesteps like it’s nothing.

His posture is still relaxed, like that cost him no effort. Like it was barely worth acknowledging. He raises his eyebrows at Galea as he watches her overbalance and stumble, looking more amused than bothered.

“Maybe don’t telegraph your movements so much,” he tells her, smiling. “Would you like to give it another go?”

Galea’s so startled by the fact he seems to be egging her on that she doesn’t realize Anna’s come up behind her until Citan’s eyes flicker her direction and—

Galea staggers backwards just in time to get out of the way as Anna throws a punch with the kind of grace that Galea didn’t know Anna _had._ Citan dodges this with the same ease he dodged Galea, as well as the next several punches Anna lobs at him, rapid-fire.

Citan’s… good at this, Galea notes. Like, _he’s done this before,_ good at this. Galea knows that being a driver does not automatically make you good at fighting. Sure, drivers are granted buffs—better strength, faster speed, endurance, so on—from their blades, but that does not make them _good_ at fighting. Like any skill, it needs practice, refinement, before you’re _good_ at it.

Citan has clearly had experience.

And that’s perhaps made most evident in the fact when Anna gets him nearly up against the edge of the counter he grabs Anna’s punch instead of dodging it and in a movement too fast and too fluid for Galea to really make out he knocks Anna off-balance and drops her weight to the floor. Anna lands, _hard,_ head slamming against the tile only a second after the rest of her body does. She wheezes and cusses and Citan just chuckles, lightly dusting off his hands.

“My apologies, but you know how reflexes are,” he says.

Anna snarls and makes to get back up. Citan sighs. There’s a flash of red ether, a sudden chill—and then Jade’s spear sits in Citan’s hand. He points it right at Anna’s throat.

“That’s enough, though, Anna,” he says. “Stay down.”

Anna keeps herself braced on her elbows, glaring up at Citan even as she tilts her head back to put some distance between herself and the point of the spear. She doesn’t move otherwise, though.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Anna spits.

What the fuck indeed, Galea thinks, at the fact Citan bothered to summon Jade’s spear over _this,_ and at the fact he _even could at all._ Blades usually need visual contact to pass a weapon to their driver. Blades who don’t still can only pass a weapon to their driver at a distance of twenty or so feet. But there’s no way Jade is within twenty feet of them right now, not if he’s taking the day off, not if he’s _healing_ like Galea knows he needs to. The thought of the distance between here and the infirmary is staggering. The distance between here and the base’s bedrooms even more so. Could he get that spear to Citan, even if they were on opposite ends of the base?

For a blade as powerful as Jade, it makes sense… but in some ways it makes Galea want to puke, too.

( _“A blade’s duty is to fulfill its driver’s wishes, is it not?”_ )

“I don’t have time to stick around all day, as much as I enjoy letting you vent some of your anger,” Citan answers Anna, cheerfully. Spear still pointed at Anna in promise, Citan turns to Galea, holding out his empty hand. “Mythra’s core crystal, if you don’t mind, Galea.”

Galea is furious and she is horrified, but she is not stupid.

If she does not hand Mythra’s core crystal over, Citan will take it by force.

Still.

“I can keep her in line,” Galea promises, because maybe that’s what Citan wants to hear. “I promise, next time… next time I won’t let her…”

“I don’t care,” Citan says. “There are enough holes in the security of this project as it is. We don’t need another. Besides, I’m sure she’ll be much happier as a military blade, anyway. She liked being a part of the action, didn’t she?”

Galea is too angry to cry, she finds, but she is also so angry that she’s likely to be sick any second now.

“I just have a question, if you don’t mind,” Klaus interjects, his tone like steel. “If every one of us working on this project is a liability, what does that make Jade? What does that make you? Why are _we_ the only ones locked up?”

Citan chuckles and shakes his head. “Oh, I’m not worried about Jade at the moment. He knows his place. And _I_ know how to keep my mouth shut.”

“Bet that’s easy when you’re the one in charge,” Anna spits from the floor.

“It is, actually,” Citan tells her brightly.

The absolute last thing Galea wants to do is hand her daughter over to this man.

But.

This isn’t about what she wants. It’s about what she can get away with.

( _At least one of Jade’s friends has died on the end of that spear._

 _Better not make it another._ )

Galea doesn’t say anything, but she moves to retrieve Mythra’s core crystal from the table. Klaus gets to his feet as she approaches—or maybe he was already on his feet. It’s a blur in Galea’s mind.

“Galea,” Klaus begins, but it doesn’t matter what he says. It doesn’t matter what any of them say.

Body like lead, skull pounding, Galea drops Mythra’s core crystal into Citan’s awaiting palm.

\- - -

Jade, who had otherwise only been sitting in his freezing bedroom poking at paperwork he hadn’t actually done more than a page of in hours, takes a break just long enough to lose his lunch down the toilet when he feels his ether tug to the shape of Citan summoning his spear.

He only bothers returning to his desk when he feels the borrowed ether return to him.

\- - -

They leave the door to Mythra’s bedroom shut.

\- - -

Galea sits on the floor in the labs at 5AM, because she keeps waking up early, and nothing really matters anymore. Klaus finds her before he goes to bed ( _not that he’ll sleep more than a few hours before he’s up again_ ) and he sits down next to her. He doesn’t say anything. He just sits, his legs splayed out in front of him. Galea hugs her legs to her chest.

“Military rotation,” she whispers to her knees, despairing.

Klaus hesitates a long moment. “If the memory patch works…” he begins, but he doesn’t finish.

There’s no point in finishing. Even if the patch does work, even if Mythra remembers them—they don’t know how long it’ll be before someone else wakes her up. They don’t know how often military blades get passed out. And even if one is passed out soon there’s such a slim chance it’d be Mythra _specifically._ And even if it is, somehow, even if she is the next blade to be handed out and even if she remembers… what then? What can she do? Bound to a soldier through resonance… It’s a small blessing that Tethe’alla and Sylvarant _aren’t_ at war right now, but… There’s still almost no way in hell they can expect a soldier’s blade to storm one high security base to even _see_ them, let alone do something as drastic as break them out.

She’ll want to, of course. Of course Mythra will _want_ to, if she remembers.

But that doesn’t mean she’ll be _able_ to.

( _“A blade’s purpose is dictated by its driver, after all.”_ )

Galea wonders if the memory patch was more curse than blessing, dooming their daughter to be furious and hopeless in whatever life she has next.

It’s too much to put into words, tastes too bitter in her mind, so Galea doesn’t even bother opening her mouth to articulate this to Klaus.

Instead she just leans her head against his shoulder and she cries.

\- - -

Their equipment gets replaced.

They piece back together their research.

They work.

Not that any of them really want to, of course.

But refusing isn’t exactly an option.

And it keeps them distracted. From their frustration. From their grief.

\- - -

“Ahem.”

Anna about leaps out of her skin at the sound. She rounds on her would-be assailant, heart jumping like a caged rabbit in her chest, hands fumbling for literally anything on her desk that would make a decent improvised weapon. Coffee mug would do. It’s incredible what blunt-force trauma does to someone, and she could throw it while running, it doesn’t _have_ to hurt, a distraction while she gets away is good enough—

Anna freezes, on her feet and coffee mug still raised to throw.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Jade says, patient, hands raised in a gesture of peace.

It doesn’t take Anna much longer than a few seconds for her brain to connect, to remember where she _really_ is, and shame fills her the same way adrenaline does, which makes a frankly disgusting cocktail in her veins, especially on top of the discomfort seeing Jade’s face stirs up in her.

And that’s- that’s not _Jade’s_ fault. It’s not. Or, well, it is but it’s.

( _Citan, keeping her pinned to the ground by shoving Jade’s spear at her exposed throat, Mythra’s core crystal dead in his hands and_

_Jade was the one who killed Mythra_

_So_ )

It’s Citan’s fault as much as it is Jade’s— _more_ than it is Jade’s—but Jade still followed orders and it’s—whatever, it’s fine, he’s still her friend she guesses but it’s not _fair_ that they’re locked up here and he isn’t and it’s not _right_ of him to stand here and smile at her like nothing’s changed and…

Whatever! Who cares! It doesn’t matter and getting worked up about it is just going to make her sick so she better just drop it.

“ _Goddess_ ,” she swears, frustrated and fed up, and she falls back into her chair, slamming her mug back down on the desk. She’s lucky it’s empty, or her notes would be ruined by dislodged coffee. ( _The last thing they need is more ruined notes._ )

Jade blinks at her, looking bemused. “Goddess?” he asks.

“What?”

“I didn’t realize you’d converted to a new religion overnight,” Jade says, eyebrows raised, a little smirk playing on his lips. “And so thoroughly that you’re already swearing in the name of a goddess no one here’s heard of…”

Anna squints, desperately. “The— _fuck_ are you talking about?” she demands.

“Did you not just say ‘goddess’ just now?”

“Did I?”

“You don’t remember.”

“I don’t even remember what I had for breakfast.”

Jade sighs. “Typical,” he says, still grinning.

Anna fumes. She has half a mind to punch that stupid grin right off his face.

“Just shut up,” she says, turning her eyes back to her computer instead. Oh, that was a mistake, now she’s just thinking about her work and how much she hates it. _Ugh._

“Anna,” Jade begins.

“Stop making fun of me,” she hisses. “It’s—I’m _already_ on edge!”

Of course she is. She’s being kept in a cage—fancy or comfortable or otherwise, a cage is still a cage—being forced to work even though she’s furious, even though _two blades are dead,_ and she’s not sure how _any_ woman is meant to stay sane or even _reasonable_ under these circumstances.

“You’re right, I’m sorry,” Jade says, and he sounds like he means it. That’s something. “If now is a bad time, I can leave you be.”

“It,” Anna begins, but. Okay, yes, she’s mad at Jade, but also she would much rather be talking to him than thinking about work, or trying-very-hard-not-to think about how she hasn’t been outside in more than a month because if she thinks about that she’ll want to claw her skin off, and…

“Now’s fine,” Anna tells Jade. She’ll take the distraction from her own thoughts. “What do you need?”

“I don’t need much, I just have a question,” Jade says.

Anna hums for him to get on with it, picking up her coffee mug back up before she remembers it’s empty. She squints at it, disappointed, but keeps holding it. Maybe she’ll get more coffee once Jade’s gone, and if she’s holding the mug she won’t forget to do that. In theory. Anyway.

Jade smiles at her, his posture still laid-back, and says as casual as anything: “I was just wondering if you happened to know where I could get my hands on any research about flesh eaters.”

It’s like a switch is flipped in Anna’s mind.

“Nope,” she says. “I burned it all. Sorry.”

She isn’t sorry. She grips her coffee mug tighter.

“What?” Jade asks, caught by surprise.

“Hm?”

“You’re telling me you managed to burn _all_ of the research that has _ever_ existed about flesh eaters?” His tone is like a knife sliding out of its sheath—not sharp, exactly, but full of the promise of sharpness underneath the humor. “That seems quite the job for just one woman.”

“Yeah, well, it had to be done.”

Jade’s eyebrows quirk upwards. “Did it, now?”

“Yeah, it did.”

_don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t think about the research itself, don’t think about the horrors written across pages upon pages of burning papers, don’t think about the purpose and the pain it caused, don’t think about why you wanted it done, don’t think about whose sake you burned it for, don’t think about it, don’t THINK about—_

The handle of her coffee mug snaps off in Anna’s hand.

The snap of it resounds against her fingers, hits her pulse and yanks her to the present. She jolts away from it, blinking down in surprise. Okay… what the fuck? That was her favorite mug, too. How had she just— _why_ had she just—

“Well that’s fantastic!” she hisses, furious. She slams the mug part back onto her desk, turns the handle over for a second as she examines it, then tosses it amongst all her loose papers. “ _Architect,_ why the fuck—”

“It’s really all gone?” Jade asks, leaning towards her.

Anna looks up at him, head turning in her confusion. “What is?” she asks. Fuck, shit, how long’s he been standing there? What’s _she_ been doing? “Sorry, what was- what was it you needed, again?” she asks, and sets aside her shitty memory and dissociation spells to worry about Later.

Jade stares at her for a long moment, then heaves a deep sigh.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “I suppose I know enough.”

“About?? What??”

But Jade is already nodding to her as he starts off, smiling again. “I’ll see if I can replace your mug, Anna.”

“Uh, thanks,” Anna says, confused as hell. She looks to her work, shudders, and instead of going back to it she gets to her feet to find Myyah for a distraction.

\- - -

Eventually, they have another prototype.

Myyah has Jade help her create the core crystal as they did with her previous artificial blades, using the numbers from Klaus’ calculation. Anna makes sure the memory patch is installed. Galea doesn’t even remember what she contributed. The months are lost to her grief, a fugue in her mind. Even sitting in a chair pulled up by Klaus’ workbench, staring at the dimly glowing core crystal laid upon it—this doesn’t feel real.

Very little has, since Mythra was taken from her.

( _it’s not death, so perhaps there’s no point in grief_

_but then_

_it’s not like Galea will ever see Mythra again_

_isn’t that enough reason to grieve?_ )

Klaus’ hand on her shoulder. Galea looks up. He smiles at her, tired—but then, Galea does not really remember what his face looks like when it isn’t creased with exhaustion. Anyway, Klaus nods to direct her attention over to Myyah, who is smiling tight and determined as she considers the dormant blade before her.

Ramsus, Galea reminds herself. Ramsus was the name Myyah picked.

“Okay,” Myyah says, and just that, as she reaches forwards. “Let’s see if…”

Anticipation is so thick in the air that someone could probably choke on it, but unlike the anticipation before they woke Poppi, this anticipation is not a bright, electric thing. Instead it is heavy, and it makes Galea want to throw up. She chews her tongue and bears it. All Myyah has to do is touch the core crystal.

She does.

Nothing happens.

“Huh?” Anna says, a short, awkward laugh following the sound. Likely she wants to fill the silence.

Myyah sighs, like she expected this. “I’ll be honest,” she admits. “I’ve never driven a blade before. And the last time I attempted to wake one, it went… similarly.” Her smile is apologetic, and she sighs again, retracting her hand.

Anna turns her head to Myyah, surprised. “What, really? I didn’t even know it was possible to _not_ be able to resonate with a blade.”

“You hear about it, sometimes.” Klaus shrugs. “Ether deficiency,” he explains, which Galea would complain about if she didn’t understand him, or if she cared, but she did understand him, and she doesn’t care. The knot in her stomach gets a little tighter, though.

Anna and Klaus exchange looks.

Klaus shrugs again, and then reaches for Ramsus’ core crystal.

The moment _his_ fingers touch it, the ether in the room pulls like it’s supposed to. There’s a swell of tension in the air, a growing light ( _a paler green than Mythra was_ ) as the core crystal lifts itself from Klaus’ hand. The tension and the light gather around the core crystal as it rises, the light growing solid, taking shape—

The energy snaps, backfires. Klaus shouts. Galea flinches back and her hands reflexively lift to shield her face. The core crystal clatters back onto the workbench. It continues pulsing that pale green, but slower, somehow.

“What…?” Galea begins.

Klaus clutches at his hand, hissing out between his teeth. “I don’t know—” he gasps. “I mean I don’t—obviously that wasn’t right, but I’m not sure I could tell you what went wrong. It’s not like _I’ve_ driven a blade, either. Someone—” he begins, then bites it back, but not soon enough. His voice finishes just fine in Galea’s head; _someone else resonated with Mythra first,_ fond if annoyed; something he’s teased her about a million times and it’s- it’s like a knife buried in her ribs.

Galea breathes, very, very carefully.

She pushes all thoughts out of her head and reaches for Ramsus’ core crystal.

“Galea—!” Klaus shouts, startled, but it’s too late. He can’t stop her.

She’s a driver—or she _was._ She knows what a resonance is supposed to feel like. If any one of them is going to know what’s wrong without having to resort to theorizing, it’ll be her. Not that she _wants_ to be a driver again, because how could she possibly want to fill the hole Mythra left in her mind with someone else, but—what she wants doesn’t matter, hasn’t mattered for a long time, now.

She pings Ramsus. He pings back. The ether in the room swells again.

And again: that gathering, solidifying light. Ether slides into Galea’s veins, something entirely unlike Mythra’s sharpened light, something both softer and more desperate. It digs its way into the back of her mind and instead of making a nest like Mythra’s ether did, Ramsus’ ether sinks in hooks, clings tight, and burning, burning fear slides down Galea’s throat. Sweating, she clings back.

The solidifying light settles, takes a more concrete shape: a man with pale blonde hair, almost white, his amber eyes wide with terror and that’s—

The resonance snaps.

Galea cries out and curls in on herself, clutching her stomach as she doubles over. Bile stings at the back of her throat. Her skin is on fire, a thousand little ether links all yanked out; the gaping chasm in her mind where Ramsus had tried to make his purchase no better. It screams at her, eats at her, _she can’t breathe._

“…lea? Ga…”

_The room is dark and silence roars in her mind; counterpoint to the pain still singing in her bones—_

Hands on her arms, someone tugging her to her feet.

_—Ramsus died terrified._

_She wasn’t awake to know how Mythra died—_

_How can her head be too full and too quiet all at once?_

She’s pushed into a chair. Lights snap on above her. Anna’s voice hisses. Hands on her hands, again.

“Galea? Stay with me, I know.”

Anna’s hands gripping hers. Anna bending down to be about eye level with her. Anna, brows furrowed in concern. Her thumbs rub against Galea’s knuckles, again, again, again, repeating. Silence is the only thing Galea can hear, but she can see Anna talking, what is Anna saying—

“Just breathe, okay, I got it. Just sit here. You don’t have to go anywhere, Galea, the—I know. I get it, I know.” There is a grief written in Anna’s eyes, an understanding that doesn’t make sense. “I have—I can’t stay, Galea, but I’m going to turn the coffee machine on. It won’t be loud enough, I know…”

How does she know, Galea wonders, and it’s the only thing keeping her from thinking about the silence, the terror, _how she’s failed all her children._

“But take some aspirin, make some coffee, get something to eat if you can work up the nerve.” Anna’s hands squeeze hers, gentle, understanding—Nothing like the Anna that Galea knows at all. “It’ll help. I promise. It won’t be enough but… I’m sorry. I have to go. I’ll try and help more later.”

She kisses the crown of Galea’s head when she stands. She turns the coffee machine on as promised—the machine bubbles and clicks, cheerfully, as if it has no idea what is happening in the world around it—and then Anna leaves, as if on a mission.

Anna’s right. It’s not loud enough.

Galea doesn’t think it’s ever going to be loud enough in her head again.

\- - -

Anna taking care of Galea, Klaus hisses as he sends a look—he’s not sure what kind, he’s not sure how he _feels_ right now—at the core crystal on his workbench, shaking the pain out of his hand. The pulse of Ramsus’ pale green light is abysmally slow, haggard, uneven. Myyah reaches across the workbench to grab his hand, turn his palm up to the light. There’s a nasty ether scar there, skin discolored in ways skin shouldn’t be—expected, after a backlash like that.

“Klaus,” Myyah says, but Klaus’ eyes don’t move.

There’s two pulses from Ramsus, rapid fire, and then it’s so long before the next Klaus isn’t quite sure it’ll pulse at all.

“Just ether burns,” Klaus tells Myyah. “It’s not the first time.” Of course, he wears protection when dealing with ether furnaces for this exact reason. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t forgotten before, either, or had one backfire when it wasn’t meant to.

“We should call a healer—”

“It’s fine, Myyah.”

“Can’t we treat it?”

“Window for treating ether burns is short.” Maybe long enough to get a healer over here ( _would any healer do? Does it_ have _to be a blade of the opposing element? Klaus forgets_ ) but he doesn’t think it’s worth the effort. “I’m more worried about him.” Eyes still fixed on Ramsus’ core crystal. “I wish I knew what went wrong.”

“The resonance perhaps?” Myyah suggests. “It is tricky to reverse-engineer.”

“Mm.” They did it once, but they don’t have the notes on that anymore ( _thanks Mythra_ ) ( _it hurts, to think about_ ), and Galea was in no state to answer if she thought it felt normal or not. Stupid. Klaus pounds the workbench with the hand Myyah isn’t holding. _He should have stopped her._

“Klaus…”

“The ether levels, maybe,” he says, just to distract himself. Anna’s handling Galea. It’s more than he can do, right now. “We knew we were packing more into him than we should, but I thought we were in the margin of—”

He doesn’t finish the thought because Anna barges back into the room and picks up Ramsus’ core crystal.

Klaus wants to flinch away from watching, but he can’t. Morbid curiosity grips him as the resonance appears to take, core crystal lifting from Anna’s hand as wind stirs in the room and that pale green light gathers to take shape—

It ends the same way it did for Galea. A backfire of energy that only just misses all of them. Anna hissing—sounding more furious than pained, even as she clutches her burned hand. ( _Galea must have burns, too._ ) Myyah rushes over to fret over Anna instead of Klaus, and Anna stands there, panting and sweating and… the way she holds herself is wrong, untethered somehow. Her eyes stare at Klaus but they don’t see him.

“The resonance took like it was supposed to,” Anna says. When she speaks, it’s hot and quick; like she’s afraid if she doesn’t get it all out in one go she won’t have time to get it out at all. “I think it’s on his end—that’s, that’s more ether than a human is meant to take, I think—that’s way too much—I don’t know if it’s a failsafe or if the resonance just can’t support it—”

“If he’s any weaker I’m not sure he really classifies as an Aegis,” Klaus hears himself say, but it’s distant, and he tries not to think about what happened to their last child who wasn’t quite an Aegis, either.

Something in Anna snaps, her spine going rigid. “I never said I knew how to _fix_ the problem—I was just trying to figure out—” She breaks off, a laugh, a sob, somewhere in between as she clutches her chest with the hand Myyah isn’t fussing over, chin tucked down. “ _Architect,_ he was in so much pain—”

Hands bracing his weight on the workbench, Klaus slumps forward.

Ramsus’ core crystal doesn’t pulse at all when he watches it. It’s dark. Dormant.

Citan didn’t even have to order this one dead.

\- - -

Two broken pieces of a core crystal lay dead on the table. The crystal is orange. The crystal is green. The crystal is—

Anna tries not to look at it.

Tries not to look at it.

( _But, unfortunately for her, this is a dream._

 _This is a dream, and it will not allow her to look anywhere else_.)

Footsteps in a dark room.

A shadow, moving.

It would startle her if she did not know that shadow, did not know that shape better than any other. The silhouette of a man gives way to a faint red glow, his features illuminated by his core crystal. And—she does not _know_ him, does not _remember_ him, but her soul could never, ever, forget his face. Red eyes peek out beneath red hair, mouth pinched into a thin line above a square jaw. Never has she seen those eyes this angry.

“Don’t,” she says, but he’s already picked up one half of the broken crystal.

“I don’t even have words for how disgusted I am,” he says, quiet, his voice a melody that her heart aches for even as she hears it shape with _disappointment._ That disappointment cuts deeper than anger possibly could have. She reaches towards him but cannot touch, can never touch.

He continues his accusation, with the bone-tired kind of fury that comes from knowing something will _never_ change. “You create an Aegis, and when they aren’t good enough for you, you kill them—”

“I didn’t!” Anna screams. “ _I didn’t kill them!_ ”

He looks up at her, and those red eyes strip her of skin, lay her heart bare.

“You created them.”

She takes a step back.

“You created them,” he repeats, and the coldness of his voice sharpens with his rage. “You created a child, a child that you _knew_ was going to be turned into a weapon, had only those you created them for not chosen to be picky—!”

His fingers tighten around the shard he holds. Anna wants to tell him to _put her child down,_ but how does she have any right?

“No,” she says, she insists. “I wouldn’t have—”

“And here you are, creating more of them, more than ready to sign them off to be used and tortured and…” He breaks off with anger, shaking his head, lips curled with his fury.

“Kratos—”

( _She does not know that name, will not remember it when she wakes up, but her lips form around the shape of it anyway._ )

“Humans disgust me.”

He puts the shard back down on the table. Suddenly there is not a table. There is just him, and her, and the darkness around them.

“Kratos, _please_ —”

Every time she has said those two words in a dream before, he has been sad and tired, a man about to do something that will kill him, something that he has no choice _but_ to do. Or—or sometimes, he is scared, and skittish, scrambling to put distance between the two of them.

He is neither tired nor skittish, now.

He takes a step forward. He’s close enough to touch but even though Anna reaches, her fingers will not brush his skin.

“And why should I trust you?” he asks.

“Because—”

“Why should I _forgive_ you and your kind for the things you have done? To the Aegises. To blades. To _me_.”

She cannot touch him, but the sword he draws presses warm against her throat just fine.

“Please,” she begs.

He pulls his sword back and swings—

\- - -

—and Anna wakes up screaming.

Myyah startles awake beside her, blinking through sleep and the dark to send a concerned look at her girlfriend, all as Anna grapples for coherency. She finds it after a throbbing moment, clutching herself tight and tucking her chin to her chest, shaking with the tears that stream down her cheeks. Her head is quiet. Too quiet.

“Anna?” Myyah asks, tentatively. “Anna, are you alright?”

_(she can feel the way that sword cuts through her skin_

_why does her flesh know the taste of it so well?)_

“It’s just—” Anna gasps, and it’s all so much and more than she can put into words for Myyah, never mind the fact that it’s slipping through her fingers so rapidly that she can barely remember it anyway. Words tear themselves out of her throat nonetheless, despair so thick it cannot be held in, and Anna has never been the kind of girl who screams wordless when she can spin speech out of rage instead: “She’s dead, he’s dead, _they’re dead_.”

“Anna—”

“They’re dead, and he will- _he will_ —!”

_Will never remember you, will never trust you again_

_And why should he trust you?_

**Humanity is horrible.**

**Just look at how quickly they decided to kill your children.**

_Blades are tools_

_Meant to be discarded when they become useless_

_Worthless_

_Only as good as the results they bring_

an endless string of test subjects in a line of horrible experiments and it doesn’t matter, that they’re hurting, that they’re dying, because they are blades and blade lives matter less, have always mattered less than human lives ever had—

_Does all of humanity think that?_

_Do_ you _think that?_

_Of course not._

**But he has every right not to trust you for the crimes of your people.**

_“And why should I trust you?”_

_“And why should I trust you?”_

**_“And why should I trust_ you _?”_**

“Anna?”

Myyah presses concerned fingers to her bare shoulder. Anna flinches away from the contact. Myyah’s hands are too cold, and they aren’t the touch she wants to feel, anyway, because Myyah’s hands aren’t _his._ Even though… it’s wrong to want for him, isn’t it? It’s wrong, because he isn’t real, he’s just a memory, and she will never ever taste the warmth of his skin again.

_And why should he allow her a taste?_

_Why should he **trust** her with that?_

“What are you talking about?” Myyah presses. “ _Who_ won’t…?”

“No one, nothing,” Anna spits, and swings her legs over the side of the bed and pushes herself to her feet. “I’m—Fine. I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m just gonna go get some water.”

Instead she heads to the bathroom down the hall and promptly deposits everything that’s still in her stomach into the toilet.

\- - -

Galea sits at the kitchen table.

Anna sits next to her, gripping Galea’s hand. She looks unsettled. Like she’s somewhere else. Galea’s seen her worse.

Myyah is cooking. Galea thinks it’s how she handles the restless energy she has.

Klaus and Citan argue by the lab’s front door.

“I’m telling you, he’s not working,” Klaus is saying. “We don’t have anything.”

“That’s what I came here to see,” Citan argues, with some kind of patience that makes Galea’s blood boil.

“You wasted your time.”

“If the four of you managed to create a perfectly functional blade and hide it, that would be even more trouble.”

“It’s pointless—”

“Let me see it, Klaus.”

Anna flinches when Klaus storms into the kitchen. Galea squeezes her hand tighter. Myyah ducks out before Klaus can open his mouth, saying that she’ll go get Ramsus—no one saw any point in stopping her from keeping a dormant core crystal. They all have to cope in their own ways.

Klaus huffs and moves the food that Myyah was cooking around so nothing burns while they’re dealing with Citan. Citan, meanwhile, stands there looking bored yet smiling as if this is all beneath him. Galea glares at him. Anna doesn’t even look his way, rubbing at her collarbone with her free hand. She’s trembling. Galea wishes she could do more to help besides hold Anna’s hand, but she doesn’t dare take her eyes off of Citan.

Myyah is in and out within a minute or two. No one speaks before she shows up.

“Here,” she says, handing Ramsus’ core crystal over to Citan.

Citan turns it over in his hands, eyebrows raised, appraising the very, very dead stone. Galea can’t really see the moment Citan decides to ping it, but she can feel the tell-tale swell of gathering ether, can feel the wind stir in the room. She turns her head away, not wanting to see Ramsus form and die again, or worse, seeing Citan _succeed—_

The ether snaps, backfires. _Crack!_ goes the lab’s front door against the wall, obscuring the sound of Citan letting Ramsus’ core crystal clatter to the floor. Anna about leaps out of her skin; Galea holds her tighter, runs her thumb over Anna’s skin, does what she can to ground her. Galea is distracted, though. Myyah is scrambling to pick Ramsus back up. Jade rushes into the room, eyes only for his driver.

( _Galea knows that blades are compelled to keep their driver safe_

 _It makes her want to puke_ )

Citan laughs, unbothered, waving Jade away without even looking at him. “It was just a failed resonance, I’m alright Jade. Thanks for worrying.”

If Jade were a fire blade, he might be steaming. Instead, the room is just significantly colder than it was before he walked in. He turns away from Citan, doesn’t look at any of the rest of them. He doesn’t move, either; he just stands there. He looks as if he’s as sick as Galea feels.

Klaus takes a step towards them both. “Get out, then,” he snarls, jerking his head towards the door. “You saw what you wanted!”

“The four of you aren’t holding out on me, are you?” Citan asks, not budging.

“Fuck you,” Anna spits.

“Anna—” Myyah begins, sending a nervous glance at her girlfriend. She clutches Ramsus’ dormant core crystal to her chest, then discards whatever she was going to say to Anna and turns back to Citan instead. “Listen, we’re doing what we can, but this is tricky business. You know how much trouble we had with resonance last time, right, Jade?”

Jade doesn’t answer.

“Klaus and Galea’s blade resonated just fine,” Citan says, meeting Galea’s eyes across the table.

If Galea were not exhausted, she might sit up straighter. She doesn’t remember what it’s like to not be bone tired, weighed down by her grief. So she slouches, tilts her head, snarls: “We don’t exactly have our notes, anymore.”

Citan raises his eyebrows. “And whose fault is that?”

Galea hisses, turns her head away.

“We’re salvaging what we can,” Klaus argues.

“And taking your sweet time about it,” Citan says.

Galea snaps.

“Well maybe if you hadn’t killed my daughter, I’d at _least_ be able to use her as a reference for rebuilding the resonance instead of having to rely on half remembered notes—"

“Good point,” Citan says.

“But I don’t _have_ Mythra—”

“I’ll go fish her out of the military pool for you.”

Galea stops. Blinks.

“What?”

“I’ll drive her, of course.” Citan smiles, swiftly shooting down Galea’s blossoming hope with those casual words. “Seeing as I can’t trust you to keep her in line. Just give me a few days to hunt her down.”

“Sir,” Jade interjects, before Citan can move, before anyone else can speak. “Are you sure you want to do that? This resonance is weighed down enough as it is, and I doubt she would be any less rebellious than she was before…”

Something boils in Galea’s veins at the insinuation, something sharp enough it gets her to snap upright again, glaring at Jade. How _dare_ he—he doesn’t need to make this _worse_ , and—

( _Anna’s fingers, gripping hers so tight she can’t feel anymore_

_If they get Mythra back, even driven by Citan_

_Isn’t that worth_ something)

“Are you implying I can’t handle her?” Citan asks, turning to his blade.

The room collectively holds its breath. Ice crystals settle on Galea’s arms, but she dare not move to brush them off. No one speaks. Jade straightens his shoulders. Citan raises his eyebrows.

Jade cracks first.

“…of course not, sir,” he says, smiling way too sharp.

“I certainly should be able to keep her in line better than her previous driver did,” Citan says, with a shrug. He _does_ look at Galea when he says that because he _is_ that much of an asshole, apparently.

Klaus shoots Galea a look of warning—but she’s not stupid. Her blood may be boiling, she may be so angry she can’t think, but she’s not stupid. She wouldn’t win a fight against Citan. She knows that. And if she gets up now it will not be Citan she fights, anyway.

( _Even if Jade looks like he’d hold his driver down for her if she asked, but—she can’t do that, she can’t ask that of him, she can’t ask him to kill himself even if he looks like he wants to._

 _…maybe that’s why he didn’t want Citan driving Mythra._ )

“A few days, Galea,” Citan says, into the silence. He nods in farewell, still grinning.

He leaves, Jade tailing after.

Galea slumps back in her chair, brings the hand Anna doesn’t have in a vice grip to her eyes, pressing fingertips into her eyelids as if that’s going to stop the bitter tears that well up.

“Well!” she says, to the room of her horrified friends. “Shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey we've officially reached up to the point where the alternate ending jade and mythra show version of this fic starts.... [ go read soup](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24173908)
> 
> "rar most of soup is canon now--" only the first half which means there's an entire second half of good prose that isn't and that you should read! thank you for your time!!!!!!!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Citan resonates with Mythra, Mythra learns how to live with a driver that hates her, and Jade learns how to trust someone other than himself with all his secrets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> about six months ago i posted _[this is gospel for insufferable bastards](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24173908)_ , otherwise known fondly as "soup". this is not soup. or rather 1) only the first 10k (15k?? less than half) or so is 1:1 soup 2) this is the extremely canon version with an (understandably) alternate ending 3) i loved jade and mythra so much i had to make them canon and Can You Blame Me
> 
> it's got new shit like: hair braiding! myyah and anna existing as characters instead of being conveniently off screen!!! and more!!!!!
> 
> ((also gently edits so a month name comes up and then slides you the [official list of months in the ywkon calendar](https://rarsneezes.dreamwidth.org/29266.html)))
> 
> \- - - 

For the record: Jade hates this.

He’d been quite grateful, to be honest, that he was Citan’s only blade up until now. He wouldn’t dare wish his driver on another blade. He _certainly_ wouldn’t wish his driver on _Mythra._ And yet.

And yet.

Here they are, standing in the section of base dedicated for blade distribution. By they, of course, Jade means himself _and_ Citan, standing before the singular desk in the room, which also serves as a partial wall—about chest height—separating everyone but the clerk from the door leading to the storage where they keep all the dormant core crystals. There is absolutely no reason for Jade to be here, along with Citan. He could have very well done it himself. But, after all, the exact fact Jade isn’t necessary is exactly why he’s here, isn’t it? Citan loves making Jade tag along on all sorts of heedless nonsense. Such is his life.

He entertains the idea of attempting to talk Citan out of this, again. He doubts it’ll go any better than it did the first time, or the time after. Citan might very well be carrying on with it out of spite. Or maybe he just enjoys seeing Jade suffer. Who can say! Jade would believe either.

So while they wait for the clerk to return from retrieving Mythra’s core crystal from rotation standby, Jade busies himself not with talking his driver out of this, but instead with packing up his grief and discomfort and shoving it somewhere Mythra won’t be able to reach once she joins the resonance loop, and subsequently the emotion bleed. She won’t remember that he murdered her. And he has no reason to remind her. He’ll just have to smile and fake it, like he has up until this point.

The clerk returns and hands Mythra’s core crystal over to Citan before plopping down in her desk chair. “You want to wake her up now, or what?” the clerk asks, trying to play the role of eager employee but clearly just itching to get back to the book she stashed under her desk when they approached her earlier. Jade can’t blame her. “I mean, I guess it doesn’t matter— _you_ don’t need my help with blade basics, do you boss? Unlike the other rookies I get in here.”

She’s definitely asking them to go. Citan, predictably, ignores this.

“Well there’s no reason not to wake her now,” he says, turning Mythra’s core crystal over in his hands. The desk clerk suppresses a sigh. Jade suppresses one of his own. And then—

It’s interesting, Jade notes—for as much as he despises this, he _will_ take the opportunity to learn, cataloguing facts away for later—that he can _feel_ the ping Citan sends to Mythra’s dormant core crystal, because somewhere in the resonance link everything shifts, Jade’s own ether being asked to attune to Mythra’s. More interesting, Jade notes, is the _hesitance_ from Mythra’s end, for a split second. In fact, it’s longer than a second. It’s long enough that Jade fears that, perhaps, the resonance might not take at all.

But then the strained ether finally relaxes, snaps into place. Tension bleeds away. There’s a pull of green light.

And then there’s Mythra.

She stands, fully formed and wholly unharmed ( _of course, as is the nature of blades_ ) in the fading light, between the clerk and Citan. She blinks a few times. The emotion bleed very abruptly and overwhelmingly spikes with first confusion, then disgust, then anger, then right back into a confusion that speaks more of fear. Mythra’s eyes dart between Citan and Jade, wary.

“What the…” she starts. “What are—” She seems to think better of the words halfway through. The fear gets tighter. Jade frowns. “Where am I?”

“Hey, calm down, you’re alright,” the desk clerk says, her tone gentle if still a little bored. Like she’s done this a million times before. To Citan, she explains. “Sometimes this happens. Whatever she felt when she died stuck, even if the memories didn’t. Give her—”

“I know,” Citan interjects, bored, and fury brews in Jade’s core like a storm. Oh he knows, does he? How many times has Jade himself woken up, angry and despairing but unable to remember why he loathes his driver so much? How long did it take for that feeling to fade, before his notes eventually rekindled it?

Mythra makes eye contact with Jade, and Jade’s attention snaps back to what really matters. That anger in Mythra’s eyes is too sharp to be anything other than recognition. And though the clerk seems certain Mythra’s feelings won’t linger for long, as far as Jade can tell, all that’s actually happened is Mythra grabbed the emotion bleed and stifled them, rather than them fading or being forgotten.

…interesting.

And potentially very, _very_ bad.

Jade hopes the sudden hunch he has is wrong, but the evidence is almost damning.

“Anyway, Mythra,” Citan says, and Mythra doesn’t seem to be surprised he knows her name despite her not giving it. In fact, she doesn’t even appear to notice. “One of my employees requested you for a research project. I’ll need to go discuss the terms with her, so, Jade? Why don’t you…” He pauses, for a second, thinking things over. “I suppose I hadn’t considered where we were keeping her. Well, you can figure that out, can’t you?”

And then he leaves before Jade can even say yes of course or one of the three witty comments that stirred in the back of his throat.

Jade despises that man.

Ah, but he’ll have to keep that out of the emotion bleed even more than normal, won’t he? Citan’s probably gotten used to Jade hating him, but it wouldn’t do to sully his new companion’s opinion of their driver so early, would it?

…then again, he’ll have to tell her the dangers she’s in right now, won’t he? Her life is in Citan’s hands as much as Jade’s is. Except, he doubts _Mythra_ of all people could keep her mouth shut. Is it safe to tell her? Is it fair not to?

Mythra watches their driver go like a hawk, and once he’s out of sight, she rounds on Jade—then considers the desk clerk, and reconsiders. She looks pleadingly towards the door.

Hm.

( _If Jade’s hunch is right—dear, Architect, he hopes it isn’t_ — _then he will have to do more than simply tell Mythra the dangers, won’t he?_ )

“Well,” Jade says, because he is nothing if not a begrudging savior. “Let’s get going, then. Surely there’s some spare bedroom I can scrounge up for you. It wouldn’t do to force you into a supply closet, now would it?”

Predictably, Mythra groans, more venom in it than should be possible. “Oh fuck off, that’s still not funny,” she says, and then chokes the words down. _Hm._

Jade walks, not addressing it. The desk clerk has already reached for her book, so maybe she didn’t notice. Better that she doesn’t notice. If Jade’s hunch is right and anyone else finds out…

Once they are outside, Jade scans the area for potential eavesdroppers, but no one is in sight, and the ambient ether only sings of three bodies within earshot; himself, Mythra, and the clerk on the other side of the door. Door should muffle this enough, so—

“I need to talk to you, _alone_ ,” Mythra bites out in a rush, before Jade can even ask.

“Well,” he sighs. “That makes things easier.” He thinks it over, and determines the sooner the better, which means there’s only one place that he can really guarantee privacy; or at least some semblance of it. “Come on, then. Let’s get to a place we can talk.”

\- - -

“Okay, first of all,” Mythra says, once Jade has the door closed and locked behind them. She guesses this must be his room, and wishes she could spend time taking it in, but. She can’t. Moving on, then: “I remember everything,” she opens with. And then: “Second of all, _what the fuck_.”

Pushing his glasses up to rub at his eyes, Jade collapses into the chair at his desk like he has never before been this weary in his life. So, that’s neat.

“I mean, I guess I get it,” Mythra continues, talking because she’s fucking nervous, talking because Jade’s quiet anger has sung in her veins since she woke up and it’s setting her on edge, talking because if she thinks about Citan’s end of the emotion bleed she’ll probably puke. “He wanted you to kill me so he could drive me, huh? Is that it? I guess that tracks. And I guess. I guess if _he_ told you to kill me I’m not...”

She is still kind of mad, though, the memory of betrayal making her ether bubble, sick, in the back of her throat. Remembering with perfect clarity how much it _hurt_ when Jade’s spear cut her open is. Hm. Okay, maybe don’t think about that.

“Shit,” Jade says, quiet.

“Hm?” Mythra asks, confused and trying to push down the sickness she feels, because if she pukes on the emptiest stomach she’s ever had that’s just going to be more painful than useful.

“ _Shit,_ shit, _shit_ ,” Jade says again. He looks so tired. The emotion bleed sings with a perfect, clear horror. That scares Mythra. That scares Mythra a lot. If _Jade_ says it’s bad news…

“Jade…” Mythra says, quietly, taking a few steps towards him. She’s so uncomfortable right now, and she hates this a lot, hates that she probably is stuck with Citan driving her whether she wants to be or not and— _Architect,_ this emotion bleed is going to make her sick. She licks her lips. Crosses her arms over her chest, hugging herself in part because she’s nervous and in part because it’s _fucking cold,_ now. Jade can freak out all he wants but does he really have to make the temperature drop so low while he does it?

“He’s going to kill you,” Jade whispers, and he sounds as exhausted as he does horrified. “He’s going to _shatter your core crystal_ if he finds out.”

“Citan?” Mythra asks, as if it could be anyone else. “Why…?”

Jade sighs. He drops his hand from his eyes and then he sits there, unmoving, scowling at the floor. It seems he is wrestling with a decision of some kind. Mythra shifts from foot to foot as she waits, antsy, as Jade spends an agonizing three minutes mulling whatever it is over. Finally he sighs.

“I suppose…” he says, slowly, “That I was going to tell you this even if you didn’t remember. But before I do—you have to promise me you can keep it secret. Can you do that, Mythra? Can you do that for me?”

“Uh, sure,” Mythra says.

Jade twists in his chair and bends to reach a book towards the bottom of the bookshelf. He sits with it in his lap, holding it tightly, as he looks up at Mythra, meets her gaze. She shivers, but holds it. The emotion bleed is full of dread and anxiety, and she’s honestly not sure who it belongs to, other than knowing it doesn’t belong to Citan.

“Let me be perfectly clear,” Jade continues, before he does anything with the book. “If you cannot keep this a secret, if _Citan finds out,_ he will kill us both, and then he’ll probably burn my things to get rid of all the evidence. Whether I want to or not, I am trusting my very life into your hands. _Can you keep a secret, Mythra_ ,” he repeats, and it is the hardest, barest question she has ever heard anyone ask her.

“I…” Mythra says, slowly. She’s not sure she trusts herself that much. That’s… really big stakes. But. If staying alive hinges on Citan not knowing she remembers… then she’ll have to do a lot of lying, anyway. What’s one more thing to hide?

For her friends, anything. Or at least, she’ll try her hardest.

“Yeah,” she tells Jade. “I’ll keep quiet.”

“Alright,” Jade says. He still hesitates as he cracks the book open and retrieves a piece of paper from its pages, hesitates again before he hands it over to her.

She takes it, and she unfolds it, and…. Alright, literally what does she unpack first.

The dates, maybe. Nine years that Jade has been Citan’s blade, of which Jade only remembers less than half. Nine years, and three tallies. The tallies being… deaths Jade has counted. Times Citan has killed him.

Times Citan has killed him because he said too much or acted out of line or because Citan simply found it more convenient for Jade to be without memories of certain events.

( _She thinks of Citan’s voice echoing over the arena, clear and cold, a demand that Poppi not hold back._

_She thinks of Citan, refusing to even check on Jade when he almost died._

_She wonders if Citan had hoped he would._

_She wonders if he was disappointed when Jade didn’t._

_She wonders how_ Jade _felt in the wake of all of that._ )

“Holy shit, Jade,” Mythra whispers, horror and fear and pity stirring in her all at once. If this has been what he’s shouldering, _on top of Citan’s general shitty attitude,_ then no fucking wonder he acts the way he does, all the time. No fucking _wonder_ he wasn’t jumping over himself to get them all out. If he tried and failed, that would be it for him. “I’m…”

Well now she feels like an ass for every time she’s been mean to him.

But also.

“ _What the fuck_ ,” she says, emphatically. She’s so furious that underneath all her fury she barely even notices Jade snatch his note back from her. “What the _fuck,_ that fucking bastard, he’s been doing this to you for _how long_? That’s _fucked up_.”

Literally how could a driver do that to a blade? Yes, yes, okay, Galea was a special case, but Mythra can’t imagine Galea being _that_ special of a case! What fucking driver goes around repeatedly killing their blade to wipe their blade’s memories _what the hell that’s fucked up._

Jade sighs, short, exasperation beating against all of Mythra’s fury. He snaps his book shut, note returned between its pages.

“Yes, thanks for enlightening me, it’s not like I wasn’t aware or anything,” he says, and it’s sarcastic as hell, but—

“ _You could have said something_!?” Mythra demands, gaping at him. “Literally you could have said something and—”

“Then what?” Jade interjects, sharp. “What could any of you have done for me? There is no way out of this that doesn’t involve me losing my memory and that is the _last_ thing I want to do. I’ve fought too hard to keep these past four years. I’m not throwing them away even for my freedom.”

“That’s…” Mythra begins, but he has every right to keep what has been constantly robbed from him for longer than he can reasonably count. And then the rest of it hits her. “Oh, shit, Citan’s gonna kill me.”

“If he finds out, undoubtedly,” Jade answers.

“Oh, fuck,” Mythra says.

She’s not dumb. She can do the math. If Citan keeps resetting Jade because he thinks Jade remembering certain things is inconvenient, then Citan’s going to fucking _hate_ that she remembers _everything._ Being killed. Poppi dying. The fact that her dr—her mother. Her _mother_ and the _rest of her family_ are all locked up. She remembers, and she can’t think of anything else that Citan would find _more_ inconvenient.

She’s going to fucking die. He’s going to gut her and then shatter her core crystal.

She wonders…

She wonders how exactly Jade has managed to live four years carrying this grim certainty in his chest for every waking second.

“How… the fuck do you live like this,” Mythra asks, almost whining.

“By the skin of my teeth,” Jade replies, with what sounds like pride but feels like brittle irritation. He bends to return his book back to its shelf.

In lieu of a better place to sit, with the only other chair being on the other side of the room and all, Mythra just plops into a heap on the floor. She hugs her knees to her chest, clutching her legs so hard her skin _hurts_ from where her fingers dig into it. She misses Galea. She misses not having a cloud of dread hanging over her head. She’s in the middle of a fucking storm and the only anchor she has is Jade’s constant anger and exhaustion, and Citan’s—

Nothing.

Citan’s fucking nothing.

“Architect, is it _always_ like that?” Mythra asks, despairing because she’s pretty sure blades aren’t meant to live with constant none input from their drivers. Jade makes an inquisitive sound at her, and she realizes that despite sharing an emotion bleed it’s not like he can _read her thoughts,_ so. “The emotion bleed, I mean,” she elaborates. “Citan’s just. Ugh.” She doesn’t even have words to describe it. It’s like a wall of apathy. “That’s _unnatural._ ”

“Is it?” Jade asks, eyebrows raised. “I can’t say I remember it feeling any different. Not often, anyway.”

_Yeah okay that’s fucked up._

There’s no point telling Jade it’s fucked up, though, because he must know, so Mythra just buries her face in her knees and groans as loud as she feels comfortable, right now.

“Did it feel different, when Galea was driving you?” Jade asks. “It occurs to me you’re the first blade—other than, say, the Aegises—who could even compare resonances between two separate drivers. Needless to say, I’m interested.”

Mythra scoffs, without any real bite in her laugh. “Yeah, it’s like night and day,” she answers. “Even if I wasn’t getting anything strong from Galea, it was at least… _nice._ Or, _comfortable._ This is like…”

It’s not stifling, exactly. It isn’t choking her. It’s just more like whatever she does, whatever she feels, straight up _doesn’t matter._ Is Citan’s own apathy bleeding into her? Tainting her ability to… well, do literally anything? Care about it properly? No wonder Jade’s a fucking nightmare!

“We need out of here,” Mythra says, instead of whatever the hell else she’d been saying before. She looks up to Jade, desperate, knowing he has to understand. “We need _out_.”

The look Jade gives her is not impassive, exactly, but it’s definitely unmoved by the strength and sharpness of her frantic despair. He looks down his nose at her, legs and arms both crossed.

“I can get you out,” he says, simply. Almost an ultimatum. “Kill you, slide your core crystal to Galea for her to hide until it’s safer, tell Citan I shattered you the moment I discovered you remembered. He might buy it.”

He might not, Jade doesn’t say. Mythra has honestly no way of making a call on that. Jade knows Citan better than she does.

It doesn’t matter, though.

“You need out, too,” she insists.

“I’m not going anywhere unless I can keep my memories,” Jade says, and there’s his ultimatum.

“They patched me, that’s probably why I kept mine,” Mythra argues. “We can patch you, too.”

“And who’s to say it will work?”

“It worked on me!”

“You’re artificial and also only one blade. Not exactly great control conditions.”

Mythra hisses. She wants more than anything for him to take her up on this, to listen, to even _think_ of running away with her. How much of this is him? How much of this is _Citan’s fucking apathy?_

“Besides,” Jade continues, his tone sharp. “Even if we were to kill Citan, that would only get us out of this hellhole of a resonance. It wouldn’t get us out of _here._ It wouldn’t get your _family_ out of their prison. We’d both just end back up in military rotation, useless to everyone else.”

“Then we break them out!” Mythra argues. It’s not fucking hard. “The two of us against everyone else—we could make a run for it! You’re the _strongest blade_ on this base!”

“Be that as it may, I am still no match for an _entire army,_ which Citan will certainly send after us.”

“Then we kill him once we’re out!”

Jade puts his face in his hand like he cannot believe Mythra is being this stupid. She growls a little at the implication—she’s _not_ being stupid. It’s clear from Jade’s tone he thinks so as he says: “That does not stop anyone else here from sending an army after us. And that would also _kill us,_ as well, leaving your family defenseless in the middle of nowhere. How would you have us avoid that? Shall we take Citan with us?”

“Well,” Mythra says, but admits that she hadn’t thought that far ahead.

“We will need time to plan,” Jade says, and _thank fuck,_ at least he’s thinking about it.

“Okay, we can do that.”

“I can do that,” Jade corrects, sharp. “ _You,_ I think, would probably be better off dead and in Galea’s hands while I work things out.”

“Hey—what the _fuck_!? I said I’d keep your secret! I can—”

“Can you keep up the charade that you don’t remember anything for weeks? For _months_ , Mythra?” Jade counters. “If Citan finds out, he will shatter you on the spot. I can handle this alone. And I promise: I will get you and your family out.”

“No,” Mythra insists. He hasn’t pulled out his spear to kill her yet, and Foresight doesn’t ping her like he’s going to try anytime soon, which is good. Means she has time to convince him not to. ( _She’ll have to convince him. He killed her once, he’s surely capable of doing it again._ ) “I’m not leaving you alone.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I don’t care! I can’t let you suffer this alone, not anymore. And if- If I’m here, then I can help. I can get them _out._ It’s not—it’s not fair for you to fucking _kill_ me again, you asshole! I don’t want to sit on the sidelines.”

Jade stares at her for a long, long moment. He’s weighing her. Judging her. Mythra keeps her head held high.

“Both of our lives are on the line here,” he says, cold. “All of my hard work, all of my memories. If you make one wrong move, we’re both dead. Why should I trust you with that?”

“Because I’m your _friend_. Don’t just write me off without giving me a chance to prove myself. Citan needs to never find out I remember? Fine! I’ll lie! I’ll get _damn good at it,_ too! But if you kill me again, I’ll never forgive you—”

Jade shrugs. “I can live with that.”

Mythra is going to wring his neck, she thinks.

“ _Jade,_ ” she hisses. “Just let me _try._ ”

Jade sighs.

“Fine,” he says. “But if we’re going to pull this off, we’ll have to get started now. You’ve got a lot to learn.”

Mythra’s core _soars._ Annoyance gives way to delight, enough that she feels comfortable to smirk, to tease: “What, _Citan Wrangling 101?_ ” she asks.

Jade massages the bridge of his nose. “If you really must call it that.”

Despite his act, the emotion bleed sings fond. Fond, and… cautiously hopeful, Mythra thinks. She wonders if that’s the first hope Jade has felt in years.

\- - -

Mythra might just survive this, Jade thinks. And not necessarily because she is great at lying—because she isn’t, really, though she’s trying her best—but because in Jade’s opinion, he’s come up with the best possible cover story.

“A word, sir, about Mythra,” Jade says to Citan, letting himself into Citan’s office. Citan looks up from… whatever the hell he was doing, certainly not _work,_ seeing as he pawns all of that off on Jade. Citan leans back in his desk chair, elbows on the arms and hands folded together, eyebrows raised at Jade. He looks insufferably smug; his default.

“Is there an issue?” Citan asks. He doesn’t seem wary. He almost seems intrigued. But then, he’s very good at pretending he’s interested in things he couldn’t give less of a shit about.

“Not necessarily,” Jade hedges. He closes the door behind him, then folds his hands behind his back. Gripping his own wrists always serves as a nice anchor. “But you know how flawed artificial blades are.” It kills him to say it, really, but he knows the words Citan _wants_ to hear. And better this than telling him outright that the memory patch even exists. “It seems Mythra remembers… a few things…”

Citan’s eyebrows raise a little higher, amusement turning sharp, dangerous. Jade kills the fear in his core.

“Not very well,” he continues, before Citan can ask anything incriminating. “I’d say she remembers things about as well as humans remember their very early childhood. Vague memories of working with Galea before—not that she remembered Galea’s name—and little else.”

“Not dying?” Citan asks.

Jade shakes his head.

“Poppi?”

Again, Jade shakes his head.

“For a moment, she seemed to, but she forgot again the moment I inquired further,” Jade elaborates, because the lie hinges on this, specifically. _Play it like Anna and her déjà vu,_ Jade had advised Mythra. If they pretended she could remember for only a moment, but forgot after, Mythra wouldn’t have to lie as much as she would simply have to play dumb every time she slipped up. “She can’t even seem to hold memories of Galea in her mind for long before they slip away from her.”

Citan hums. “That’s interesting. But not something we can’t work around, I think.” That’s the thing, about Citan. He thinks fast. Already he’s weighed the issue, made his decision, worked out the best plan of attack. “If we keep her interactions with Galea and the rest to a minimum, perhaps supervised… And I suppose if she really becomes troublesome, we can just get rid of her.”

It is only immense self-control on Jade’s part that keeps Citan alive, right then.

“Of course, sir,” Jade bites out through clenched teeth.

Citan waves him off, looking unbothered. “Well, tell Mythra to meet me in the lab in, I don’t know, an hour or so?” He looks idly at the clock, but Jade knows that it doesn’t matter. Citan will be late, regardless of what time he sets. He is only ever late. “Actually, you should probably stick with her. The less time she spends unsupervised, the better. And if she ever seems to remember more than just a few vague things…”

Jade smiles, bright and false. “Understood.”

( _If it comes to that, he will see Mythra safely back to her mother, even if he has to shatter another blade and present those shards to Citan as proof._ )

\- - -

“Do you think he bought it?” Mythra asks, eagerly, as Jade lets himself back into his room. She’s sitting in his armchair, and only when Jade enters does she drop her feet so that they’re on the floor instead of on the seat. She pushes herself partway out of the chair, towards Jade, her energy restless.

“He’s cautious, but it bought you some time. The rest depends on how well you can keep up the act,” Jade says, closing his door and sitting at his desk to poke at the endless pile of paperwork. He can multitask just fine, thank you.

“Right,” Mythra says, with a shaky sort of confidence. She clears her throat. “Which, uh, reminds me. Galea and the rest—they spent _weeks_ working on that memory patch. They’re all probably expecting me to remember when I interact with them. I can pretend I don’t, but—”

So much for the paperwork.

Jade turns in his chair so he can consider Mythra.

“I should probably tell them you don’t remember, then,” he says, and waits for her reaction.

She might as well not be sitting down for how far she’s leaning forward. “Yeah but that’s the thing, they were all certain the patch was _perfect_ , because it _was._ And so that plus what’s—I mean I don’t know how well I can lie to them.” She fidgets, and the emotion bleed burns anxious, fearful.

“Is there something you want me to do?” Jade asks, studying her.

“I don’t know!” Mythra answers, frustrated. “I’m not good at fixing things. But I- I know that we need to keep this a secret from Citan, and I think… I think they can keep a secret.”

Jade raises his eyebrows, disapproving. “I really don’t think they can,” he argues. Anna does not know how to think before she speaks. He’s never heard Myyah once lie in all the time he’s known her. Klaus and Galea, maybe… but the more people know a secret, the looser the security of it is. That’s half the reason Citan wanted Mythra dead and out of Galea’s hands, wasn’t it? And loath as Jade is to admit it, Citan isn’t _wrong._ He knows how to keep secrets. Of course he does. He’s been murdering to keep them for at least the past ten years.

Mythra glares at Jade, though, clearly not thinking highly of how quickly he dismissed her previous driver.

“Galea can,” she insists.

“I don’t think it’s wise to tell more people than we have to.”

“Yeah but I can’t lie to Galea.”

“Then maybe you should have thought of that before you agreed to—”

“No, _fuck you_ ,” Mythra interjects, and the taste of her anger makes Jade’s core burn with discomfort. Her emotions are always so _loud._ He’s not sure he’ll ever get used to it. “I promise you, Galea can keep a secret, _but only if she knows she has to keep a secret._ If we tell her the truth, and tell her that no one else can know—”

“I understand,” Jade says. He does. He knows how much the scientist crew is prone to gossip. And them speculating about whether or not Mythra really remembers, whether or not their patch actually worked… Citan doesn’t know Mythra well enough to be able to figure out she’s lying right away. But Mythra’s family does.

And if Citan has even a suspicion that Mythra actually, truly remembers everything? Well, that’s more than enough for him to decide to kill her again.

Jade sighs and gets back to his feet.

“You’ll tell her, then?” Mythra says, her relief plain on her face, her relief singing so strongly in Jade’s veins it almost takes the tension out of his shoulders.

“I suppose I must.”

“Can you tell her I’m sorry, too, please Jade—”

But Jade is already out the door.

\- - -

Conveniently, the scientist crew is all waiting in the kitchen, which makes Jade’s life easier. Actually, it appears he interrupted lunch…? At this time of day? You know what, it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t really get time to consider or ask about it, anyway, because the moment he has the door shut behind him Anna is all but on her feet.

“Does Mythra remember?” Anna asks.

“Why… would she?” Jade answers, very carefully, painting himself as confused as he possibly can.

“We…” Klaus says, hesitantly, the disappointment already working its way onto his face. It’s a good thing Jade came here before Mythra did, then. Mythra would not have been able to lie to that face convincingly. “We were working on a memory patch—”

“A way for blades to remember, even after they died,” Anna interjects, rapidly, frantic. “It was- it was _perfect_! What do you _mean_ it didn’t work?”

“It didn’t,” Jade tells her, plainly, and does his best to ignore the way Anna’s face caves in on itself. “Mythra doesn’t remember anything.”

“ _SHIT!”_ Anna screeches, pushing her chair away from the table with a sharp movement that almost sends her toppling. “Shit, _fuck! FUCK!!!!”_ She grabs her coffee mug and throws it on the floor, shattering it. Klaus yelps and slides away from the mess. Myyah gets to her feet. Anna looks rather like she’d love to flip the entire table, and only hasn’t because she’d be flipping it right into Galea’s face. “IT WAS SUPPOSED TO _WORK!!!_ ” Anna screams.

“Anna—” Klaus begins.

The anger doesn’t quite _leave_ Anna, but she grips the edge of the table for support. “Can we look at it?” she asks, quiet, desperate. She looks to Jade, her eyes wild. “Can we- can we look at her, _please_ , there has to be a reason it went wrong—”

“I don’t think Citan would appreciate you poking around at one of his blades,” Jade answers.

“That’s—” Anna starts, furious.

Galea pointedly doesn’t look at him.

“Surely, for the sake of science?” Klaus offers. “We are on the cusp of what might be the greatest discovery of the century—”

“Your job is the Aegises.”

“Surely he’s not at least _interested_ in a way for blades to remember,” Klaus says. “Surely _you’re_ interested.”

Jade shrugs. “Blade memories are the last thing Citan cares about,” he informs his friends, ice in his throat. “In fact, I doubt he’d care much whether the Aegis you produce can remember between lifetimes or not. All he cares about is the Aegis itself—a job which you are _avoiding_.”

“We’re doing what we can, you know recreating resonance is hard,” Myyah argues, with the patience of some kind of saint. “That’s why…”

“Why Citan and Mythra will be over within the hour, yes, so Galea can run tests,” Jade says, speaking over her. “Just. Galea.”

Galea scowls at him. Anna screams one more time and then storms out of the room. Myyah watches as if she wants to follow, but she doesn’t. Interesting, if only Jade had time for it, but he doesn’t.

“Speaking of, Galea,” he says. “A word. Privately, if you’d please.”

Galea glares at him, which Jade supposes he deserves. He’d be angry, if he were her. He’d be angry, he’d be grieving, he might even be jealous. Still. He has to talk to her. So he doesn’t budge, and doesn’t make a move, and they stare each other down while Klaus and Myyah watch.

Finally Galea gives in. She rolls her eyes and gets to her feet. Even the snap of her chair sliding away from the table is angry.

They end up in Galea’s room, which will have to do. Jade doesn’t spend any time to catalogue Galea’s belongings in detail, nor does he precisely have the energy for it. She has a bed. A bookshelf. Things that look like they could have belonged to Mythra shoved into a pile on the floor. The bed sits in almost the center of the room, headboard only up against the wall, and it’s near the bed that Galea stops, arms crossed, to glare up at Jade.

“What do you want?” Galea asks.

“Can you keep a secret?” Jade asks in return, because Mythra promised she could but he still wants to hear Galea say it for herself.

“What?”

“You have to promise me you can keep a secret before I say anything more.”

Galea stares at him, looking rather like she doesn’t have the patience for this. Jade doesn’t have all the time in the world, but he does have the time to stare her down again, unmoving. She cracked earlier. She’ll crack now.

“Yes, fine,” Galea sighs. “I can keep a secret.”

“Is that a _promise_?” Jade asks.

He wants Galea to promise him personally. He wants her to, because Galea is exactly the kind of woman who would stick to that kind of thing. They all are, the scientists. A promise made sincerely to one of their friends—and foolish, Jade thinks, to consider himself their friend, but it is a gamble he must make—is a promise they will go to any lengths to keep. So. She has to promise him. And he has to hope that’s enough.

“Shitty kind of thing to do, making me promise before I even hear what it is,” Galea says, and Jade holds his breath, but: “But yes, yes, fine. I promise. I’ll keep your secret.”

Jade breathes.

“Good. Then I want you to forget everything I just said. Mythra remembers.”

“I—fucking _excuse me?_ ”

“Mythra remembers,” Jade repeats, voice low. “Please do not shout about it, Galea, no one else can know.”

“What do you mean, _no one else can know,_ ” Galea spits. She gestures wildly through the air, throws a hand out to the side like _what the fuck,_ one step taken towards Jade. She’s now officially uncomfortably in his space, but Jade doesn’t move. “You- you _saw_ how Anna reacted, we can’t just—”

“If Citan finds out Mythra remembers, the best case scenario is he shatters her core crystal,” Jade says, simply.

“That—”

“The last thing we need is Citan overhearing one of you four talking about the memory patch, or being unable to resist trying to interact with Mythra in some fashion.”

Galea slowly lets her arm fall, but she’s still scowling at Jade.

“Easier to act when it’s not an act,” Jade says, into her silence.

“Then why tell me?” Galea demands. “Why tell _me_ the truth?”

“Because you were going to find out the moment you interacted with her,” Jade answers. “And then you would have gossiped about your suspicions, or—Architect forbid—asked Mythra herself, right there, with Citan watching.”

Galea steps, or rather, _staggers_ back, the weight of this all seeming to settle on her shoulders. She breathes, very slowly, very deeply. “…you really think Citan would shatter her, if he knows she remembers?” she asks, cautiously.

“I’m positive of it.”

Thankfully, Galea does not ask him why he’s positive. Jade counts his meager blessings.

“For the record,” he continues, so Galea is on the same page as him and Mythra. “I have told Citan that Mythra remembers after a fashion; the same way Anna remembers things…”

“…so, for a moment, and then not at all,” Galea finishes.

“Exactly.”

Galea massages her temples. “ _Architect,_ ” she swears, under her breath.

“If Citan asks, you can tell him I told you that. You can also tell him I told you not to get your hopes up. I’ve spun it as a flaw in artificial programming…” Galea looks like she’s about to protest, so Jade reminds her: “Because if he knows about the memory patch, Mythra dies. Core crystal shattered, remember. Blades don’t recover from that.”

Galea puts her hands over her face and sinks down to sit at the edge of her bed. Jade lets her have a moment.

“…Klaus will know,” she whispers, finally. “If he interacts with Mythra. He’ll know.”

“Which is why he won’t interact with Mythra,” Jade counters. “At least, not at length. That’s your job. You only need one person to research, don’t you?”

At this, Galea groans, dropping her hands into her lap with some force. “Oh, research is the _last_ thing I want to do!”

Jade coughs and adjusts his glasses. “I’m sorry, did I say research? I meant stalling.”

Galea’s head snaps up to look at him.

“Stall?” she repeats. And then it clicks. “You have a plan.”

“Not much of one, I’m afraid. I’m still working on it.”

Galea’s smiling, though. “I’m assuming it doesn’t involve staying here, though.”

Jade sighs and adjusts his glasses again instead of looking at Galea. “No,” he admits. “But…” He isn’t sure what makes him do it. Maybe it’s how much Mythra trusts Galea, humming inside of him despite Mythra not even being here. Maybe it’s just because it’s more than his own life on the line, here. They’ve bought Mythra time, with their cover story, but she’s not bound to last more than a year, and a year is a generous estimate. Maybe then it is the urgency that makes him speak. “Leaving with Citan still in the picture is impossible at best, and yet I’m not keen to kill myself to buy you freedom.”

“It’d be your freedom, too,” Galea insists.

Jade despises that they’re talking about this.

“And if it’s memories you’re worried about—”

“You’ll have to forgive me, but that patch of yours working on Mythra, who is artificial, isn’t quite enough concrete evidence for me to feel comfortable throwing my life and memories away on a gamble.” Never mind that Citan would shatter _him_ if he found out Jade was attempting to keep his memories. Jade adjusts his glasses one last time, then lets his hand fall from his face. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

He starts towards the door.

“Wait, Jade,” Galea calls after him.

“Yes?” he answers, sighing. He may not want to stick around, but he’d also be foolish to so carelessly treat their only other ally in this game.

“Two questions,” Galea says. “One: can I tell everyone else that you are working to get us out?”

“I wouldn’t want to get their hopes up,” Jade hedges.

“Hope is what we need to survive right now,” Galea counters.

Jade grimaces. “What was your second question?”

“Oh,” Galea says, and the confidence slides off her face. She fiddles with her fingers, nervous, as she looks up at Jade. Then she goes very, very still. “Citan wouldn’t… hurt Mythra, would he?”

Jade blinks, confused. “…if he finds out she kept her memories—”

“Yeah, I got that,” Galea interjects. Her hands clench into fists. She looks at them rather than Jade. “I meant…”

She can’t seem to finish the thought.

Jade follows it, after a moment.

“Oh,” he says. “No, I think.”

Galea’s attention snaps up to him then, horrified. “You _think_?”

“He hasn’t hurt me,” Jade answers, because plotting murder and lack of care for your blade’s safety does not count as physical harm the way Galea is thinking of it. ( _He tries not to dwell on the ‘that I know of’ that his mind appends to the statement; all the things he doesn’t remember haunt him._ ) “I don’t expect him to change his mind just because Mythra’s in the picture.”

Galea doesn’t look quite satisfied.

“I promise, Galea,” Jade adds, to hopefully put her at _some_ ease. “If he hurts Mythra, it will be the last thing he does.”

Galea looks at him, startled, and Jade tries not to think too much about what he just promised.

“Remember: secrecy is key,” Jade says, so he doesn’t _have_ to think about it. “I need to go.”

“Got it,” Galea answers. She smiles at him; tired, sad. “Take care of each other, okay?”

Jade leaves.

**\- - -**

Mythra’s not good at lying.

Galea’s always known this.

Granted, Galea never cared much for lying, herself. ( _Pranking Klaus being the only exception, because that’s_ harmless.) It’s no real surprise if Mythra learned to value honesty from her, but. Well, here they both are, aren’t they? Mythra sitting on the table, wires connecting her core crystal to the computer Galea’s monitoring, and the both of them having to pretend like Mythra doesn’t remember her while Citan sits in the corner of the room, judging.

The only grace Galea thinks they have is that Citan looks incredibly bored, and so maybe he isn’t watching too closely.

…Maybe.

Architect, Galea hopes so, because otherwise the pointed way she and Mythra are not looking too closely at each other has to be the loudest confirmation of guilt that there has ever been. She remembers that she is supposed to be grieving, and tries to play it like that. It’s not hard. Poppi and Ramsus are dead, after all, and Mythra is… here, but…

The silence in Galea’s mind still roars louder than she knows how to deal with. Mythra is close enough to touch, but the resonance remains severed between them, Galea’s emotions echoing in a void without Mythra on the other end of the bleed. That almost makes it _harder._

Never mind the way Mythra holds her mouth shut, her face pinched. Galea’s used to constant chatter from Mythra, but she receives no chatter now. Just silence, grating against Galea’s mind.

At least Mythra’s alive, she tells herself. That thought makes her feel a little less sick.

The computer beeps. Mythra breathes, sharp, annoyed. Galea scratches down notes on a piece of paper.

This has to be the tensest silence Galea has ever worked in. She’s glad she doesn’t _actually_ need to be working. Jade told her to stall, so she’ll stall, and stalling doesn’t require much concentration. That means she can devote what little she has to acting. And to studying Mythra.

Mythra grips the edges of the table beneath her, and she glares at Citan, as she has been for every moment the past half hour that hasn’t been spent looking but not really looking at Galea. She’s upset, Galea can tell, emotion bleed or no. Galea just wishes she could _do_ something about it.

The fact she can’t makes Galea furious.

She wants to say something to Mythra—to reassure her, or something. She isn’t sure what to say. She’s not sure there’s anything she _can_ say, especially not with Citan sitting right there. So Galea does her work and she doesn’t say anything at all.

When the hour is up, Citan gets to his feet, says something Galea doesn’t listen to, and Mythra hops off the table.

“It was nice seeing you, Mythra,” Galea says, finally, because she can’t not say _anything._

Mythra doesn’t look at her. “Yeah, sure,” she says, voice tight.

And then she leaves the room after her driver.

\- - -

Klaus goes to check on Anna.

She’s in her own room, instead of Myyah’s. The room’s… kind of a mess, as all of Anna’s living spaces are ( _the kitchen only stays as neat as it does because it is communal and also Myyah is meticulous about things being in the proper spot_ ). But Klaus isn’t focused on the mess. He’s focused on Anna, curled up on her bed, hugging herself tightly. She breathes like she’s just been crying but trying desperately not to sound like that.

“Anna… hey,” Klaus says, gently. He walks around the bed until he’s in front of her, even though that requires crossing a pile of clothes that he does his best not to step on.

Anna sniffs and tucks her head into her knees. “You must hate me,” is what it _sounds_ like she mumbles into her skin.

“What?” Klaus says, startled.

“It didn’t work,” Anna whispers. She’s curled up on her side, not bothering to even get close to upright to talk to Klaus, her face hidden by the splay of hair across her knees. “I don’t- I don’t fucking know _why_ it didn’t work, but it didn’t work—” Her voice cracks against the words. “It doesn’t make any sense—”

“It doesn’t,” Klaus agrees, sitting down on the edge of the bed. It doesn’t even occur to him that Jade might lie about that, of all things. “By all accounts, that patch should have worked. I don’t get why it didn’t, either…”

He cuts off, caught in anger of something he worked so hard on _not working,_ and the price is his _daughter’s memories_ —of course he’s angry! Of course he’s _grieving_! And so maybe that carries into his tone, that sharpness of his grief, that isn’t a surprise.

The surprise is how Anna flinches at his words.

“’s ‘cuz I fucked up,” she despairs. “I fucked it up, somehow, I always fuck it up—”

Klaus stares, baffled. The hell is this coming from? “Anna,” he begins.

“I _always_ fuck it _up,_ and now you all hate me—”

“We do not.”

“—but Mythra _doesn’t remember us!!_ I thought it’d be fine, if she just remembered, if she just- if she just _remembered,_ but—but!!” Anna wheezes, volume pitching upwards, and she _keeps talking_. “She _died,_ she _died,_ she _died_ and I wasn’t—I wasn’t even there to stop it—I wasn’t even—I didn’t even know until she—she was just _gone_ and when I see her again she won’t _remember me_ , Klaus _—_ she won’t _remember,_ and she’ll never—she’ll never _trust me again—_ ”

Anna’s fingers flex, tighten against her shoulders. She sobs.

“ _Why would she trust me again?_ ” Her voice breaks around the words. “ _Why would she ever—_ ”

Klaus gets the distinct feeling that this isn’t about Mythra at all.

Who it _is_ about, he can’t possibly fathom, but that’s not what matters right now.

“Anna…” Klaus says, and reaches over to stroke her hair. She flinches at first, but relaxes before long. “The year is 2419,” he recites. “Your girlfriend’s name is Myyah, your mothers’ names are Elise and Monica. Everything sucks right now, and Mythra won’t remember us, but we aren’t mad at you. I promise, Anna, no one’s mad at you.”

She doesn’t answer.

But she does shift herself across the bed until she can drop her head into his lap. They stay like that for a while.

\- - -

Other than that designated hour per day where she’s over in the labs with Galea and Citan, Mythra has basically free rein of the entire base and her time, which is _weird_. The only thing she isn’t allowed to do is go to the labs unsupervised, which, again, _weird._ Very backwards from how things were about six months ago, and it’s _weird_ to think of it as _more than six months,_ because to Mythra it feels like only a handful of weeks.

All this to say there’s not really anything to do on base other than make a show of wanting to spar with soldiers under the act of pretending she doesn’t remember kicking their asses before, so Mythra spends most of her time in Jade’s room. Talking to him helps keep her sane. It’s refreshing, getting to drop the whole “doesn’t remember” act.

Right now they’re talking about potential escape plans—or, talking while Jade is _also_ doing paperwork. Apparently he has no difficulty multitasking? But, Architect, Mythra’s gonna murder Citan for how much paperwork he just casually unloads on Jade all the time. Jade’s _always_ doing it! She’s glad Jade started letting her help with the less complicated shit, but not even that puts a meaningful dent in the pile.

Anyway. Escape plans.

It’s going the same as it always does: Mythra tossing around ideas she’s had while Jade shoots them down. They don’t really get a lot of progress, like this, but like hell Mythra’s _not_ going to keep tossing ideas at Jade. Like, first of all, she can’t stand _not_ working on this, for her own sake. She’s thinking about it all the time! She might as well share her thoughts!! And second of all she’s not entirely sure Jade _would_ think it out all the way on his own. She loves him, she trusts him and his insane ability to think plans through, _but_ …

She thinks maybe he’s stuck, just a little. If he’s known this has been happening for as long as that note says he’s known… even with the resets… Well, Mythra can’t say for sure, because she’s not actually in Jade’s head ( _just his emotions_ ) but a part of her wonders if some part of him stopped considering escape a real option. Sure, the problem re: his memories is a dicey one, but… Well, if Mythra’d found a note like that first thing she woke up, she’d probably go kill her driver immediately. Can’t be sad about losing memories you haven’t made yet.

But Mythra is Mythra. And Jade is Jade.

And—

“I’m sorry, Mythra, it’s just occurred to me,” Jade interjects, as he turns away from his desk to look at her. She’s perched obnoxiously in his armchair, sitting on the arm rather than the seat because listen it’s what’s comfiest right now, elbow resting on her knees, hand propping her chin up. “But you have absolutely no real fighting experience, do you?”

“Uh, rude,” Mythra spits. Like okay no, Galea’s a scientist, not a fighter, but that doesn’t mean Mythra hasn’t tussled with local monsters or, you know, Literally Every Willing Person On This Base plenty of times before. “I do too!”

“No tactical sense, though, if your plans are any clue,” Jade sighs.

“Hey!”

Maybe he’s got a point, but Mythra still wants to ask how the hell _he_ has any of that if all he’s doing is paperwork all the time. ( _Maybe—that’s the thing about blades, though. Real, not artificial blades. Even if they don’t remember, the knowledge they gained in previous lifetimes builds up. It’s probably the same for artificial blades, but who knows how much older Jade actually is than her. Some blades stick around for thousands of years._ )

And anyway, Jade is getting to his feet, so Mythra forgets about all that.

“We’ll have to remedy this,” Jade says, like it’s a great chore. “Come on.”

Only then does Mythra realize that Jade intends to _spar_ with her. She practically jumps to her feet. She’s always wanted to do that, but the asshole would never let her before!!

Things are pretty different now, aren’t they, though.

No one even _asks_ where they’re going, which, again, _weird._ Mythra doesn’t even want to think about how long her family has been robbed of this simple freedom—it makes her ether boil to think of them trapped, but: all the reason to work quicker. Telling herself that a spar counts as prep work considering Jade seems to think of it as such makes her feel a little better about how excited she is for it.

The little arena is empty, and Mythra takes her place at one end, and Jade takes his place at the other.

And then he summons his spear.

( _frigid cold Foresight warns her but he’s still faster than she can react_

 _pain searing through her abdomen_ )

Fear deftly grabs Mythra by the throat and proverbially slams her to the ground, for how suddenly her core pounds, for how tight her lungs are. She shakes it off as well as she can, not really conscious of _why_ , all of a sudden, every inch of her is screaming to get out get out get out. It’s stupid? She’s fine? She’s never reacted to a spar like this, so what the fuck—

It doesn’t go well.

The spar, that is.

Like, Mythra expected to get her ass kicked, but. Maybe not so _fantastically_.

“Would it have killed you to hold back just a little?” Mythra grumbles, as she picks herself back up. She’s sore all over.

“I was,” Jade says.

“Doubt it,” Mythra counters, but then again her own reflexes were… _way_ worse than they should have been. Even when with Foresight giving her a heads up and ample time to react, it was like it still wasn’t enough? Jade must be one speedy bastard.

That or dying and resetting set her back.

Mythra really hopes it’s not that one.

“Mythra,” calls out a new voice—Hubert’s voice. Architect, she hasn’t interacted with Hubert much since. Well.

…Anyway.

“Didn’t know we had an audience,” Mythra calls, chipper.

“Can you come with me?” Hubert asks, and he sounds. Concerned. Huh.

“Suuure?” Mythra says, drawing the sound out.

“Just Mythra,” Hubert interjects, when Jade starts to follow after her.

“I don’t think so,” Jade counters, his smile sharp. Feels kind of nice when he’s using that terrifying thing to back her up, actually.

“Yeah, I don’t see why he can’t come?” Mythra adds.

Hubert scowls, but finally caves, rolling his eyes dramatically. Apparently that hasn’t changed about him. “Fine,” he relents, and turns sharply on his heel. Nothing to do but follow him, so they do. Predictably, he ushers them to the base infirmary.

Some guy in what Mythra thinks is his early twenties ( _how should she know, she doesn’t get human ages_ ), looks up startled at them when they enter. He’s blonde, wearing a soldier’s uniform… Hubert’s driver, from the way ether sings between them, and the way the first thing he does is ask: “Hubert…?” all concerned, with a ton of weight behind it that Mythra can’t read but surely Hubert can.

“Not now, Flynn,” Hubert snaps, and continues in his quest of shoving Mythra-with-Jade-tailing-her into a room.

( _Mythra thinks, idly, that if Flynn hadn’t resonated with a_ healing _blade, he probably would be somewhere else in the military right now. And then she thinks she hates how much she’s learned about how Tethe’alla’s military works in the time she’s been with Galea on this stupid project._ )

“There, sit,” Hubert instructs, gesturing to the cot in the room.

What is this, a medical checkup? “Sup, doc?” Mythra asks, though she does as told. Hubert glares at her. Jade settles himself into the corner of the room, watching, rapt.

Hubert doesn’t answer right away, too busy wrapping Mythra up in ether. For being water, it’s not nearly as gentle as Mythra was expecting it to be. He hums to himself, short and frustrated, though Mythra definitely feels him _healing_ her. She appreciates that. Jade hit _hard_.

“I _cannot_ believe you were dense enough to fight in those conditions,” Hubert snaps at Mythra, and Mythra blinks, taken aback.

“What?”

“Are you saying you didn’t notice slow reaction times? Fighting being a little more difficult than usual? Fear—or something else—gripping you too hard for you to think straight?”

Mythra blushes, because, yeah, but.

“What, is that like a _thing_?” she asks.

Hubert rolls his eyes. “Yes, Mythra, that is _a thing_ ,” he says. “It’s called a _trauma response._ For the life of me I’m not sure what caused it but watching you playfight while your body was _actively working against you_ was the most painful thing I’ve ever watched, I think. And more than that: _baffling._ I know you’re a few weeks old, but unless something’s happened to you in those few weeks that none of us were aware of, I cannot imagine why a blade as young as you is storing a trauma response. There’s no reason for your body to have recorded that while your core trashed the memories.”

“…oh,” Mythra says, quiet.

Jade shoots her a warning look, but he looks distinctly aware of the same thing she is, and just as uncomfortable about the notion.

Getting murdered once by the blade in front of her would probably be plenty of reason for her body to scream at her, huh?

“Well that sucks,” Mythra says, trying to not give Hubert too much room to think about how she suddenly understands what’s wrong and isn’t keen on telling. “Is there any way to—stop this? Like…”

“Avoiding whatever caused it is the go-to advice,” Hubert says, still scowling. “Though I still don’t understand what in the world—”

“May I try something?” Jade asks.

“Sure,” Mythra says.

“What kind of something?” Hubert demands.

“I promise I won’t touch her,” Jade assures him, and then apparently taking Mythra’s consent as enough, he summons his spear.

( _she didn’t know cold could BURN_

_but she was learning a lot of new things right now_

_like the man she considered friend apparently was happy enough to run her through if—_ )

“ _Architect_ ,” Hubert swears, startled, in response to the way Mythra’s ether spikes under his senses. “What—”

Jade dismisses his spear again, and Mythra breathes, a little easier.

“…I see,” Jade says.

“ _Why_ in the world would _that_ do anything,” Hubert demands, looking startled between Jade and Mythra.

“Practice weapons, then,” Jade concludes.

“Yeah, uh,” Mythra says. “Yeah…”

Hubert glares between the two of them for at least another twenty seconds, but Jade isn’t budging—he’s like a stone, when he wants to be—and Mythra’s too shaky to articulate it even if she _wanted_ to, which she doesn’t. Finally Hubert gives up.

“You know what, fine, whatever, I don’t want to know, and I guess it’s none of my business,” he says, and he withdraws his ether from Mythra. “ _At least_ avoid sparring when you’re feeling like that. I’d assume that’d be _common sense._ ”

Apparently wanting the final word, he all but shoves them out of the room.

\- - -

“Anna,” Galea says, cautiously. Anna’s sitting at her desk, staring blankly at her computer… ah. She has the memory patch code up. Galea feels a pang of guilt that she breathes carefully, sharply around.

( _If Galea had it her way, she would tell Anna the truth._

 _But with Mythra’s life on the line…_ )

Anna doesn’t seem to have noticed her.

“Anna?” Galea says, again.

 _Now_ Anna looks up at her, tired. “What is it?”

“I know… it might be a longshot.” And surely, it is. The Anna she knows has no reason to know the answer to this question, to have any pertinent information at all. But… Another Anna, perhaps. Isn’t that silly? To think of there being _another Anna—_ and yet Galea cannot forget the kiss Anna pressed to her brow after Ramsus died, the pain and understanding in her voice, the _It won’t be enough, I know, I know,_ whispered by a woman who understood even though Anna should not understand. But if she knew the pain of losing a blade, then why not this? Anna’s memories have always been… strange, and Galea need not know the reason why to make use of it.

So: Galea steels herself, asks her question: “But I need to know whatever you know about flesh eaters.”

Anna blinks at her. The tired—but open, interested—confusion fades instantly into something sharper, guarded. Anna’s hands clench into fists.

“Why do you need to know that?” she asks, and _not_ ‘why would I know anything’.

“For Jade, of course,” Galea answers.

…not that Jade _asked_ Galea for help, of course. But it’s been long enough with no real news on an escape plan that Galea’s starting to wonder if he needs it. Honestly, Galea thinks Jade’s been scrambling for a more concrete way _out_ for longer than she realized.

“He’s trying to get us out of here, remember?” Galea continues into Anna’s scowling silence. Anna relaxes a little, but only a little. “But he needs Citan out of the picture without forfeiting his memories, and he doesn’t want to try the memory patch—”

Anna laughs like there’s nails in her mouth. “Can’t blame him. It’s not like it worked.”

There’s that guilt, again. Galea pushes it down.

“Which leaves him precisely one other option,” she says, as clear as she can. “And his research options are limited.” If Jade is allowed off-base anymore, Galea would be surprised. And given how often he had to travel to Sybak to fetch them research, there’s almost no way what he’s after is here on base. And even if he _were_ allowed off-base, that would leave Mythra alone with Citan, and…

Best not think about that option, Galea thinks.

Anna huffs, still seeming uncertain. She’s scowling at something past Galea—a distant memory, perhaps.

“Unless you want to see him without his memories,” Galea says, knowing exactly what it will do.

Anna shudders. Seems to snap back to herself, in a manner of _snapping back to herself_ that doesn’t involve her returning to the Anna that Galea is friends with.

“No,” she whispers, hoarse. “That would be worse.”

That’s what Galea thought. “Do you know anything? Anything more than the vague concept would be useful—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Anna answers, flapping a hand at Galea as she starts rummaging around on her desk for a paper and something to write with. “Architect, I’m such an ass. He asked, earlier, and I didn’t even give him a straight answer. But it’s hard—thinking about—” She twists and barks out a laugh, high and grieving, but short as well. “I’m fine,” she says, as she starts writing. “I’m- just- just give me a minute—”

Galea does. She wishes she could say something. But anything she could say might break Anna out of this spell, and then this would have been pointless.

Anna finishes writing. Shoves the paper into Galea’s hands. Galea would look it over, but she’s transfixed by the tight smile on Anna’s face, the way Anna trembles, her eyes manic.

“There. What I know—that’ll be of use, anyway. Everything else, well…” Anna breaks off, laughs again, shorter, more pained. “That- that doesn’t need to be put to paper.”

Galea swallows. “Anna…” she begins.

Anna twitches a smile at her. “Galea, right?” she asks. Galea nods, startled. For all Anna’s memory is furthest from perfect, she has never forgotten one of her friend’s names. “Listen, Galea… Don’t remind her of this, okay? There are so many things she’s better off not remembering—so many things we’ve been through that would only break her heart more than it’s already been broken.” She fidgets her hands together in her lap, smooths out her pants repetitively. At no point do her eyes break away from Galea’s. “But you understand, don’t you? With Mythra. Having someone you love so deeply be right there, but unable to remember you at all…”

Galea nods, numbly. She understands, she really does, that leaving Anna out of the loop was the safest decision, for Mythra’s sake, for _Jade’s_ , but hearing this… Just because it’s safe doesn’t mean it’s right.

“It’s alright,” Anna says, before Galea can open her mouth. “It’s alright. It’s just hard—shouldering all this pain without being able to remember why it hurts. But it’s better if we don’t remember. I’m sure of it. Better we don’t remember our husband. Better yet we don’t remember what they did to our son. The loss is too—”

She breaks off. Looks away. Galea bites her tongue even though she so very desperately wants to say approximately a million things.

“Anyway,” Anna says, distant. “That should help.”

“Anna…” Galea says, unable to stop herself.

Anna blinks, startles, looks up at her. “What?” she says, bright and confused and blank. “Galea—how long have you been there! Did you need something?”

“I…” Galea swallows. Shakes her head. “No, I just.” She makes a show of being as startled to be here as Anna is to see her. “Must’ve been distracted. Wrong turn.”

Anna laughs, understanding and despairing. “Yeah, gotcha,” she says. “Hang in there, alright?”

“You too,” Galea answers, absently, and walks away.

\- - -

And on the paper, when she looks at it later, in handwriting messier than Anna’s normally is, as if written by a trembling hand—

> _5min after driver dies; abt enough time for surgery_
> 
> _transplant works_
> 
> _honestly idek if actually eating a heart does?? misnomer_
> 
> _results vary; blades usu. stable w/o driver if transplant successful but health a gamble_
> 
> _trouble processing ether common. usu. not enough to kill outright._
> 
> _dont kno abt long-term effects sorry_

…Ah.

Galea reads it over a few times, breathing carefully, shuddering slightly. It’s… better than the rumors she’s heard about flesh eaters, she supposes; hushed tones of unspeakable taboo, blades killing their drivers, eating their hearts, and then going on walking even though they should have died the moment their driver did. Flesh eaters are something that most people pretend don’t exist, and those who acknowledge them usually do with disgust.

But Galea wonders how many of those blades simply found themselves with a bad driver and no other choice.

And as for what Anna said, about a husband, about a son…

…maybe the less Galea thinks about it, and the fact it’s intricately tied to Anna’s knowledge of flesh eaters, the better.

\- - -

Jade pokes his head into the room where Mythra and Galea are working, supervised by Citan.

“How are things going?” Jade asks, curious, nosy.

“Great!” Galea answers, chipper.

“ _Boring_ ,” Mythra groans, and Jade cracks a smile. At least she doesn’t have to lie about _everything._

“Slow,” Citan says, and Galea shoots him a glare while Mythra flinches. Jade mentally readjusts his timetable. If Citan is growing impatient, they have less time than Jade would like.

“Well, I’m glad to hear things are coming along.” Jade smiles, gleeful in a way that’s obviously false, clearly pretentious, just because he likes unsettling people. Of course, everyone in this room is used to his humor by now, so they’re mostly unfazed. Citan even shakes his head all exasperated, his smile almost fond, and Jade routinely kills the bit of his core that _sings_ at what almost looks like affection from his driver.

He wishes he could leave then and there, but he _did_ come here for reasons other than being nosy, so he levels his gaze with Mythra, and he asks: “Do you need anything?”

Mythra shakes her head, slight. Her expression suggests she’s got a handle on this, even if the emotion bleed tells Jade of her discomfort. Well. He’ll take her word for it.

“Actually,” Galea says, and Jade raises his eyebrows in surprise. “I had something for you, Jade. Hang on, I don’t think anyone knows where I put it, I’ll have to get it for you.”

“Alright,” Jade says, though he doubts it’s important enough to warrant this.

Even still, Galea steps away from the computer she was at. “Will you…?” she asks, looking to Mythra, then cuts herself off. The expressions they exchange speak volumes, though, for a blade who’s not meant to remember her previous driver at all. Jade hopes Citan didn’t notice. Or that he doesn’t care. Odds are good that it could be one of those two. Anyway, instead Galea says: “I’ll be right back,” and slides past Jade out of the room.

Jade sends Mythra an apology along the emotion bleed, knowing well enough Citan’s not going to be paying attention to it. Really he just has to hope his apology isn’t swallowed by Citan’s apathy. Regardless, he follows after Galea.

“You do realize I don’t really have time to be fetching documents, anymore,” Jade says as they walk.

“Oh no it’s not that,” Galea assures him.

“Hey,” Klaus calls, as they walk past the kitchen. “You got time for coffee? I can make either of you a mug while I’m making my own—”

“Still working, Klaus,” Galea replies, sharp.

“Jade?”

“Once I’m off the clock.”

“You’re never off the clock, asshole.”

Jade just shoots Klaus a smile, and leaves Klaus to his coffee, while Galea stops at her desk, rummaging through her drawer. Whatever she’s looking for she seems to have shoved towards the back of it, so no wonder she had to come get it herself.

“There we go,” Galea says, and then takes the folded paper she retrieved and stashes it amongst some blank papers and a few with weeks’ old info that she probably pulled out of her trash, from the looks of the coffee stains. It’ll make a passable decoy so long as no one looks too closely, though the fact it _needs_ a decoy makes Jade reconsider his earlier stance on this not being important. That’s what he gets for discrediting Galea so immediately. Shame on him, he should have known better.

“Thank you, Galea, you know I do love paperwork,” Jade jokes, as he takes the stack from her. He knows better than to look at it now, so near Citan. “I’ll see it done by tomorrow.”

“Take as long as you need,” Galea replies, which she _would_ have said if she’d actually handed him a stack of paperwork, so he can’t blame her for missing how he was fishing for a deadline as far as the contents of the note. If it actually has a deadline, hopefully Galea will have included said information _in_ the note.

“I will, then,” Jade says, and maybe it’s a little scripted, but who knows who might be listening.

“I should, uh, get back,” Galea says, then, nervously tucking strands of her long hair behind her ears. “Less time I leave Mythra alone with him, the better.”

“Mm,” Jade hums, noncommittal, though Galea’s right.

So Galea makes her way back that direction, and Jade makes his way out of the labs, passing Klaus because the layout of the labs dictates he pass through the kitchen before he reaches the front doors.

“You sure you don’t want a coffee break? Fifteen minutes, come on, you work too much,” Klaus calls, waving a mug that he’s apparently made for Jade. It’s nice of him. Jade still doesn’t have time. He’s eager to see what in the world Galea put in this note she’s smuggling him.

“Pass.”

“If you promise you’ll bring the mug back, you can take the coffee with you,” Klaus offers, and that’s also extremely nice of him.

…alright, then. Wordlessly, Jade tucks Galea’s papers to his chest and takes the mug from Klaus, drinking just enough that it’s not going to be obnoxious to carry around. It’s sweeter than he likes, but he knows Anna’s corrupted the lot of them here, and he doesn’t have time to be picky, right now.

“Thank you,” he says, instead, and leaves it at that.

Of course the coffee is ice cold by the time Jade’s navigated the base and returned to his room to enjoy it, but Jade’s well used to every drink he touches ending this way, so he barely notices it. He’s too distracted by extracting Galea’s note and reading it over and.

Hm.

Of all the things he was expecting, this wasn’t even close to one of them.

> **I doubted you’d have much time to do your own research, right now, so: this. I can’t exactly guarantee the accuracy of it, because I asked Anna, but, well, you know how her memory is. I don’t think any of this is inaccurate.**
> 
> **How in the world she knows this much about the topic I didn’t ask, and don’t intend to. But here’s what she gave me.**

Attached is a note in Anna’s handwriting, messy, but clear. It’s really not a lot of information at all, but Galea’s right: it’s just enough and much too specific to discredit offhand. The logic aligns with the little Jade already knew about flesh eaters, as well. And he remembers, very clearly, how the last time he spoke to Anna on the matter she declared with ease that she burned the research, which implies at some point she _saw_ it… had _reason_ to burn it… ( _Though Jade still doubts she ever burned_ all _of the research that had ever existed on the matter._ ) Anna’s memories of seemingly other lifetimes might not make any sense to Jade, but he’d be foolish to disregard them simply because he cannot explain them.

Still, though…

Jade isn’t sure what he feels, as he reads through the information, commits it to memory. A way for blades to escape resonance, albeit a somewhat gruesome one. A way for him to survive, memories intact, regardless of whether or not Citan lives. And for all that it is gruesome, it has a higher chance of success than the memory patch. Jade wouldn’t be gambling his memories. Just his health.

He tucks the information away to think about later, and tucks Galea’s note away with his own hidden on the bookshelf. Logic says it’d be safer to split them up, but Jade knows that either note alone would condemn him, so he might as well stash them both in the same place. It’d make it easier for a future Jade to find, anyway, if worst came to worst.

And while he painstakingly turns over his options in the back of his mind like sifting through a bucket of sharp stones, hoping to find one that cuts less than the rest, Jade sets about doing ( _Citan’s_ ) paperwork.

He’s at it for maybe an hour when there’s a knock on his door.

“It’s me,” calls Mythra’s voice, somewhat tight. The resonance link hums with her proximity.

“Come in,” Jade calls back to her, not looking up.

Mythra closes the door behind her and then immediately throws herself face first into Jade’s bed, screaming into his pillow. You know what? That’s fair.

“Sounds like you had fun,” Jade teases once she’s done, without any real mirth in his voice. The emotion bleed screams with all of Mythra’s frustration and Jade swallows it as well as he can, though it makes his ether run faster than he would like, his own body pulsing with all of her anger. He’s still not used to that; no surprise, considering the emotion bleed from Citan’s end is still that roaring tsunami of apathy.

Mythra is silent for a few moments, and then she lifts her head looking towards him, desperate. “This is _exhausting,”_ she complains, voice sharp. “I don’t know how you do it! Keeping up this many masks _sucks_.”

“Masks?” Jade asks. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Yes he does.

“Fuck you,” Mythra says, with no venom. She flops back down.

Jade hums, but sees no reason to inquire any further. Nothing’s _wrong,_ Mythra’s just weathering the road they have in front of them, and if she wants to complain to lighten its load, there’s no reason for Jade to stop her, nothing else Jade can offer her than an ear to listen. He continues filling out paperwork, continues breathing against the strength of the emotion bleed, continues rolling around what options he has in his mind until, proverbially, his palms bleed.

“…I hate not being able to talk to Galea…” Mythra says, quiet. She’s rolled over onto her back, staring up at the ceiling.

“I know,” Jade says, because whether he wanted to or not he’s become very familiar with the taste of how much Mythra misses her mother.

“It’s so stupid. I mean, you’re here, Jade, and I guess that’s fine.” Her tone says she doesn’t really think so. Jade can’t argue. He knows he’s not great at being any kind of emotional pillar or wall of strength. “But I used to be able to bitch about anything with her, and she’d get it, and it’d feel better, you know? I miss that. I miss feeling better.”

Jade sighs.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“Whatever.” She throws her arm across her eyes. The strength of her frustration fizzles, drowns under Citan’s apathy. If Jade knew how to buoy her up, he would.

But he doesn’t, so he just does his paperwork.

It’s silent for a few minutes, and then the bed creaks, Mythra sitting up. She’s staring at—not him. His desk.

“Hey…” she says, curious. “Is that… coffee? Where’d you get coffee—wait.” She swings her legs off the bed, hands clinging to the mattress to hold her balance steady as she leans forward. “That’s Klaus’ mug.”

Oh, yes. Jade’d forgotten to drink the rest of it. “He practically shoved it in my hands as I was leaving, earlier,” Jade explains.

Mythra snorts, eyebrows raised. “Did he, now,” she laughs, and strangely enough Jade doesn’t get the joke.

“What?”

Mythra watches him a second, then obviously decides she’s not telling him. “Nothing,” she says, sweetly. And then she hops off the bed and walks over. “Hey, if you’re not gonna finish it, can I have it? The stuff in the machines this side of base tastes horrible.”

Jade certainly cannot in good conscience deny her this taste of home, so he answers by picking the mug up and offering it to her. She takes it and squirrels a sip away, clearly cautious of how little she has to enjoy. She makes a face after that first drink, but seems to reconsider her disgust after a moment.

“Actually, almost tastes better ice cold,” she mutters, then walks it and herself over to the armchair. Jade appreciates her not drinking coffee on his bed.

They don’t talk for the rest of the afternoon. Something about the coffee seems to soothe Mythra, at least.

\- - -

For all that it would be best to be cautious, it is also foolish to not use all the assets at his disposal. So Jade drops a stack of “paperwork” on Galea’s desk while she’s busy with Mythra and Citan, a note attached to the front so she knows it’s from him, a message stashed into the middle. At the very least, he can reasonably trust Citan not to (currently) have a reason to snoop through _Galea’s_ _paperwork,_ and he trusts Galea’s coworkers won’t be interested enough to look, either.

He returned the mug he borrowed to the kitchen when he first walked in, of course—the kitchen is the first part of the labs anyone accesses—but he seeks Klaus out before he leaves, anyway. Klaus is still loitering in the kitchen, which makes Jade wonder if this is exactly the time of day Klaus always makes coffee. The coffee maker certainly is chirping as it makes a fresh batch.

“You got time to stay this time?” Klaus asks, hopeful. Jade has no idea why he cares.

“No,” Jade answers. “But if I could have another cup to take with me, I would appreciate it.”

“Oh,” Klaus says, seeming surprised. Jade almost hates to add:

“It’s for Mythra, actually. She’s been complaining nonstop about the taste of the coffee over there, and…”

“Hey, she needs whatever peace she can get, with _Citan_ driving her,” Klaus interjects, spitting Jade’s driver’s name like it’s a curse. Well, he’s not wrong. “And it’s really no wonder she can’t get it how she likes it, there’s no way any of those community pots have enough sugar to sustain her.” To Jade’s almost horror, Klaus demonstrates this by dunking what must be half the carton of sugar into the mug he’s making for Mythra. Alright then.

“Thank you,” Jade says. “I’ll take it, give it to her when she wraps up here.”

“Sure,” Klaus answers. “You don’t want to stick around for her?”

“I’m terribly busy.”

“You could bring some of your paperwork with you, you know. Do it here.”

Jade appreciates the offer, and aches in some part of him for that privilege, but too much casual time spent in the labs just gives Citan the knowledge of what Jade has to lose. As much as he cares for his friends, indulging in their friendship so brazenly is not something he can afford. He takes the wistful desire and smothers it, stashing it somewhere neither Citan nor Mythra can reach—though it probably doesn’t matter, for how loudly the emotion bleed clamors with Mythra’s dread and simmering fury as it pounds its fists against the barrier of Citan’s apathy. Jade tries to tune it out before he gets sick.

“Maybe another time,” he tells Klaus.

Klaus sighs, disappointed, but doesn’t press. “Do you want a coffee of your own?” he asks, instead. Then he reconsiders. “…I guess you’re out of hands, though, and I’m not allowed to leave.”

“Perhaps next time I’ll think to bring a thermos.” Mythra might appreciate her coffee not being ice cold when she gets it, but Jade’s afraid he can’t do anything about that. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Klaus.”

“Oh, uh. Yeah.”

\- - -

When Mythra leaves the labs, trailing after Citan and grateful she won’t get in trouble for ditching him the moment they’re out, she stops before she’s quite out the door, because she’s realized that Klaus hasn’t moved an inch. He’s staring at about the spot Mythra’s occupying now, as if in a trance.

“…you just gonna keep standing there?” Mythra asks, and is grateful that her personality just being Like This means no one squints about memories she’s not supposed to have.

“What,” Klaus says, shaking his head as he snaps out of it. “Shit. Nothing.”

“You’re—” _as bad as Anna,_ Mythra wants to tease, but she catches herself before she says it, bites it down. There’s no point saying anything else, because Citan’s still _right fucking there,_ and even the slightest interaction with Klaus could end up telling him too much. “Weird,” Mythra finishes, just so she doesn’t leave the sentence hanging, her ether boiling in the back of her throat at the sad look Klaus gives her.

At least when she sees the coffee Jade got her she forgets about that almost entirely.

( _And she keeps laughing to herself, too._

_Like, okay, ew. Klaus, get better taste, maybe?_

_But it’s fucking hilarious that Jade seems to legitimately have no idea._ )

\- - -

The note Jade left to Galea reads:

> _I’m considering my options._
> 
> _What does the memory patch feel like from the driver’s end? If it cannot be done in complete secret, it’s not an option._
> 
> _Keep stalling. There’s no telling what Citan will do to Mythra once she’s irrelevant._

Galea sighs as she considers it. Drafts her reply.

> **It requires a soft reset. About an hour of you being offline, a ping in the resonance to make sure it’s stable so you can wake up again. Citan will probably feel it. So unless our timing is perfect…**
> 
> **I’ve told the others you intend on getting us out, though not about Mythra, of course. It’s hard to brainstorm when we don’t really know what your ideas are. Mind sharing?**

And tomorrow, like clockwork, Jade returns with a reply and leaves with a mug of coffee.

> _F_ _or the better, perhaps. That route has other complications._
> 
> _And you really should be more careful with your words, Galea. If Citan so much as catches wind of an escape attempt, that’s it, for all of you. He will kill you. He barely has a reason to keep you alive as it is. And so long as the committee doesn’t have to deal with the dirty work, they couldn’t care less._
> 
> _Still, if you do have any ideas, send them my way. And start disposing of these notes somehow, the last thing we need is a paper trail._

Galea scowls at the note for a minute—way to dodge several questions, Jade. But before she can get too worked up about that, she notices the second note attached.

Mythra’s handwriting.

> **_Hey, Mom, I miss you. I miss all of you. I hope everyone’s doing okay, trapped over there. I didn’t even realize how long it’s been. Y’all good? I don’t think I can do anything for you but… ~~~~_**
> 
> **_Tell me how everyone’s doing I guess._ **
> 
> **_I’m fine. Bored, mostly. But it’s not so bad. Citan could be worse—but you’ve already seen that, huh?_ **
> 
> **_And Jade’s fine, really. Please don’t be hard on him, alright? He’s trying._ **

Galea reads and rereads the note several times, fondness for her daughter boiling up in her chest—it still echoes uncomfortably in the emptiness in her mind, an emptiness she hates that she’s starting to get used to. At least it hurts a little less, seeing something _from_ Mythra; confirmation that she _remembers._

…Mythra must miss her if she’s pulling the mom card.

On what must be the fifth reread Galea finally lets herself think about what Mythra said about Citan. She wonders if by _worse_ Mythra means, oh, Galea doesn’t know, the fact he’s already killed three of her children and would gladly kill Mythra a second time? Or that time where he almost cut Anna open comes to mind, as well. _Could be worse…_ ugh. Galea wants to wrap her hands around that man’s neck and strangle him.

She sets about drafting replies, instead.

To Jade:

> **Mind elaborating on the complications?**
> 
> **Also, I feel no remorse. I think knowing that you’re working on getting us out is the only thing keeping Anna sane—or close to it. You’d be offering her any kind of comfort you could if you were here, too.**
> 
> **We have no ideas, like I said, other than what I’ve already offered. It’s hard to solve a problem when we don’t know what the problem is. If you’re so worried about our plans reaching the wrong ears, why not tell us directly, when Citan isn’t around? Or slip Klaus the information instead of leaving it on my desk. He’s just as capable of destroying notes once he’s received them!**

And, to Mythra:

> **I miss you too. I’m glad you’re okay. And if I get my hands on Citan, I swear—**
> 
> **Well, you can imagine.**
> 
> **We’re alright, over here, though I’ll be happier when there’s less secrets. Not much to do when we aren’t working, though. Klaus is handling it okay, but his sleep schedule has gone to shits. Myyah is somehow still working, though on what, I don’t know. And Anna… well, she’ll be fine once we’re out of here, I think.**
> 
> **And I’ll trust Jade when he’ll actually let me help him.**

\- - -

“You just don’t want to admit you don’t actually have a plan, huh,” Mythra accuses, as she looks up from Galea’s note.

Jade’s sitting sideways in his chair so he can actually look at her—poor planning on his part, he supposes, that the desk was set up so if he wants to face it his back is to the rest of the room, and also the door. Or maybe it wasn’t him who set it up like this. All he knows is that the room was in this arrangement when he got it, and he hasn’t bothered changing it since, regardless of the inconvenience. Regardless.

“I have several plans,” Jade tells Mythra.

Mythra raises her eyebrows at him. Jade lets his frustration get swallowed by Citan’s apathy.

“And I don’t really see how telling Galea about them would make any real difference in any of them,” Jade continues, shrugging. “It’d just be pointless to bother her with annoying things, such as my half-concrete musings—”

“Buying her trust isn’t pointless,” Mythra argues.

Jade lets his hands fall, and his smile along with it.

“What are the complications, anyway?” Mythra presses. “Is it with the memory patch?”

Jade sighs. “Assuming that it worked, and that Citan didn’t find out, and didn’t shatter me for the attempt, it would only solve the problem of my memories. It wouldn’t prevent the both of us getting tossed into the military pool once Citan is dead.”

Mythra thinks on this for a moment, putting Galea’s note in her lap. Jade will let her have it for a little longer, before reminding her to burn it.

“…I mean,” Mythra says, “if we kill him in the labs, where Galea can find our core crystals…”

Jade blinks at her, surprised. She has… a point. The plan still has holes, of course, but she has a point. And if he kills Citan right after he installs the memory patch, it won’t matter if Citan knew it was happening. Perhaps that was what Galea was implying, about their timing being perfect? They certainly have a daily window for the opportunity, as well, where Citan and Mythra are both already conveniently in the labs.

“That leaves a lot of things for your family to shoulder in our absence, and requires them to successfully hide our core crystals for approximately three days, all while the authorities likely try them for murder,” Jade muses. “But it’s not a half bad start.”

“I mean, there’s always Galea’s other idea,” Mythra offers. “Not that I can blame you if you don’t like it. I wouldn’t want to eat his heart either. That’s gross.”

“I wouldn’t have to eat it.”

“Still, gross.”

Yes, and Jade isn’t sure how to politely say that having only the little information Anna was capable of providing isn’t nearly enough for him to be more confident about that option comparatively to the memory patch. There are more risks than he’s comfortable with. He knows it will work, at least initially, but the rest…?

( _Permanently damage his health in ways he can’t even fathom, or gamble with his memories?_ _Neither option is wholly appealing._ )

“That leaves you dead when Citan dies,” Jade tells Mythra, instead of any of his other concerns. “I’m not sure I could get everyone out of the base by myself.”

Mythra scoffs. “Look, I know one blade against everyone is horrible odds, but also that one blade is _you,_ Jade. If anyone could handle it—”

“I’ll think about it.”

( _As if he could do anything else._ )

Mythra scowls at him, for a moment, then looks him up and down like she’s studying him.

“Hey, why is your desk set up so you have to sit with your back to the door, anyway?” she asks, completely catching him off guard. Jade hates how good she is at that. He’s so startled he can’t even get in a witty remark before: “What? You always look so awkward having to sit sideways to see me, and you nearly have a panic attack every time someone walks by the door, it just… seems stupid, I guess?”

Jade is, for once in his life, at a complete loss for words.

Mythra gets to her feet. “Here, help me move all this paperwork off it, we should be able to move it—just turn it around, there’s room for that.” And before Jade can protest she has a stack of paperwork picked up.

“Mythra, I have a system—” Jade begins.

“Then tell me where to put things!” Mythra counters, undeterred. At least she’s being _careful_ when she’s dropping the paperwork on the floor—Architect, he doesn’t get a choice in this, does he? Mythra’s going to do it whether he moves or not!

So, he helps.

And within ten minutes, they have the desk turned around so it’s facing the door, and the paperwork is all back in place. Mythra jokes offhand about a filing cabinet, along with a few complaints how much paperwork there even is, but Jade is still reeling too thoroughly from this turn of events to quip back at her.

And… Well, it was pointless, Jade wants to argue. Because, despite all his tension about the door and people entering without his permission, the resonance sings with Citan’s proximity long before Jade can see him anyway, so it doesn’t really _matter_ whether he can see the door or not, but…

Mythra seems satisfied.

Somehow, for some reason Jade doesn’t understand, that makes it worth it.

\- - -

Jade’s life sucks, and that’s a fact Mythra’s become intimately familiar with. He only gets more and more frustrated with each day that passes, so much so that Mythra finds herself wound up with _his_ stress as it seeps the emotion bleed. Citan either can’t feel it, or just doesn’t fucking care; the asshole. Mythra cares, though. Mythra cares a lot.

So like.

“You could do your own damn paperwork, you know,” she snaps to Citan on the way from the labs to the rest of the base. No, that wouldn’t fix all of Jade’s problems, but it’d be a fucking _start._

Citan just laughs. Mythra _guesses_ she’s glad he isn’t angry at her, but being belittled is worse. Like, way worse.

“Why should I?” Citan asks, shooting her an unaffected smile, as smug as he always is. “That’s what Jade’s for, isn’t it?”

It’s a near thing Mythra doesn’t punch his face in. Or put her sword through his gut.

“He—you can’t just—” Mythra starts, so full of anger she doesn’t know what to do with it other than scream, seeing as physical violence is absolutely not an option, here. “You give him _way_ too much!” she settles on, finally.

“He can handle it.”

“Yeah, and you’re an asshole.”

Citan just chuckles again, which makes Mythra’s ether _really_ boil in her veins. “Am I, now?” he asks, unbothered. “I thought it was a driver’s duty to push their blade to their full potential?”

Mythra scoffs, loud and furious. _How_ can he say that with a straight face!?

“You are _not_ doing that,” she laughs, angry.

“Oh? I’m not?” Citan asks in return.

 _No,_ Mythra wants to scream. She wants to scream about all he’s doing is dragging Jade down and making Jade’s life hell. She wants to scream about how drivers don’t just _treat_ their blades like this, she wants to scream _Galea would never,_ but. She knows that’d get her killed. So she holds her tongue.

She’s so enraged she wants to cry, but like hell she’ll do that in front of Citan, so like.

She just turns on her heel and walks off, instead. Can’t get killed if she doesn’t open her mouth. Perfect plan.

\- - -

“Galea,” Klaus calls, his voice weighty. “Coffee.”

He’s sitting in the kitchen, sprawled back in one of the table’s chairs, one arm over the back of it. There’s a mug sitting in front of him, a mug sitting across from him. His expression is just as weighty as his voice.

Ah. He wants to talk.

Galea thinks not.

“Oh, thanks for that! I was just about to make some—” she says, brightly, snagging the mug and starting to exit the kitchen.

“ _Galea_ ,” Klaus says, a sharpness to his voice. “I need to ask you about Mythra, and I’d really rather have this conversation while Anna’s asleep, considering.”

Considering Mythra, memoryless, is one of the Bad topics for Anna. ( _Worst any of them have seen, actually_.) But Mythra is also not something Galea is willing to discuss with Klaus, for several obvious reasons. So—

“Anna’s basically nocturnal now,” Galea jokes, which is true, for how many depression naps she takes, though maybe Galea shouldn’t joke about that. It’s gotten to the point where she barely sees Anna anymore, and Myyah about as little, for all that she’s glued herself to Anna’s side. “Plenty of time to have this conversation later. Or, I don’t know, tomorrow?” She innocently takes a sip of her coffee—Klaus _did_ make it just like she likes it; wonderful bribery, not going to work—and takes another idle step towards the door.

The chair scrapes. Klaus gets to his feet, takes a few steps towards her. Galea just raises her eyebrows at him. What’s he going to do? Physically stop her from leaving? She’ll dump the coffee on his nice shirt, first. Maybe it’ll actually get him to wash it.

Klaus stops. Makes that face he makes when he’s very carefully reining back his bad mood.

“I’m just worried about you,” he says, with way more edge on it than there needs to be, emotion told in the tremble of his voice that he can’t quite smooth out.

…Galea feels a little bad.

“What for?” she asks, because she supposes she could be kind enough to humor him when he’s worried about her. Not that he _needs_ to be worried, but she can’t exactly tell him that.

“I just…” Klaus begins, then seems to rethink it, striking his knuckles against the table a few times to vent his frustration. “I get it. Everything has gone to shit. We’re all grieving. But you’re…” He sighs. Galea can peg the exact moment he decides to give her the benefit of the doubt, and silently thanks the Architect for it. “Are you handling things okay?”

Galea hums, intentionally tired. “I’m handling it fine, yeah,” she answers.

As soon as she’s said it she’s realized that it wasn’t the answer Klaus wanted to hear. Anger snaps across his face. He shakes his head, his smile sharp.

“No, see,” Klaus says, just shy of furious. “You’re either hiding something, Galea, or you’re in the worst denial I’ve _ever_ seen, and we both lived with Myyah those first three days after Poppi died. There is no way in hell you should be _this_ okay with Mythra being—being—” He gestures with his hands, at a loss for words, clearly struggling to pin down his grief. Again, Galea feels sorry for him, but…

“I’m fine,” she says, because there’s too much on the line to tell him the truth. “Really.”

“ _Galea_.”

“Thanks for the coffee.” She raises the mug to him in a wave of parting, then ducks out of the kitchen to lock herself and her current work in her room so he can’t bother her. That won’t stop him forever, but. Well. Maybe it’ll buy her time.

\- - -

Citan lets himself into Jade’s room without knocking. Jade is doing paperwork, of course, though he stops to watch his driver enter the room and—leaving the door wide open—casually go sit on Jade’s bed as if he owns the place. Jade breathes very carefully, not trusting his driver enough to really take his eyes off of him, but not wanting to look _too_ paranoid. He’s grateful Mythra turned the desk around, though. Much easier to do paperwork while keeping Citan in his peripherals, this way.

“Planning on throwing a party, now that you’ve redecorated?” Citan asks, laughing.

Jade levels him with an unamused glare and forcefully checks something off. “Is there something you needed, sir?” he asks, instead of answering.

The glint in Citan’s eyes fades, and he shakes his head, exasperated. “Just thinking that it’s taking Galea quite some time to do measurements, isn’t it,” Citan says. The curl of his mouth leans towards petulant. Of course it does.

“With all due respect, sir,” Jade counters, which is approximately none respect. “How should you know how long it takes to do measurements? You aren’t a scientist.”

“The PhD on my wall says otherwise.”

Jade sighs, adjusts his glasses with his free hand. He’s seen the PhD on Citan’s wall. He’s not wholly convinced the PhD isn’t counterfeit. After all, he’s never heard of the degree path it claims Citan has, and certainly having that paperwork forged is well within Citan’s budget. Jade knows better than anyone exactly how much money Citan has. Citan is likely lounging in a throne built by bribery and blackmail ( _never mind Jade’s sweat and ether_ ) and Jade just has to put up with that, doesn’t he?

“To be fair, they _are_ stepping on the toes of God,” Jade says, instead of commenting on said PhD or the degree that Citan purportedly has. “Even if they did succeed once, Klaus has confided to me that it was on accident. You’ll just have to be patient like the rest of us.”

Citan… doesn’t really look amused. Jade adjusts his glasses again rather than flinching. He doesn’t turn back to his paperwork.

“I’m half convinced Galea’s stalling,” Citan says, but the twitch of his eyebrows makes Jade pretty certain that Galea’s not the only one Citan thinks is stalling.

The emotion bleed stays crystal clear, clean of dread that Jade has carefully slaughtered and hidden under the rug. He doesn’t think about how Citan has almost certainly encountered his stalling tactics before. He doesn’t think about how Citan knows more of his tricks than he himself does, and that he doesn’t know which tricks Citan already knows, already suspects. No, all Jade does is drop his hand from his glasses and smile, attuning his emotions to the steady stream of Mythra’s frustrated boredom, amplifying that for Citan to feel if he cares to pull his wall of apathy down long enough to check.

“I could talk to her about it,” Jade offers, mentally adjusting his time table again. They’re running out of time, and it’s just on _him_ to make a decision, but it’s a decision he’s not sure how to make.

Citan waves Jade’s offer away, though. “Whatever, she can have another month if she wants it,” he says. “But I’ll start sending someone else with Mythra. There’s no real reason for me to go, after all. She seems to be behaving herself.”

Jade’s smile does not shift an inch.

Not. An. Inch.

\- - -

Mythra takes him to the arena to wreck all the training dummies she can get her hands on. The fact that a solid twenty minutes of senseless violence doesn’t settle any of the restlessness in his core worries Jade. If only he had time to worry about it.

“Oh thank Architect, I was getting worried when I felt that much ether after I saw the two of you head this way,” Hubert says from the arena’s side entrance. He takes in the destroyed dummies, each either rent to shreds by Jade’s ice or disintegrated by Mythra’s light. He scowls, ever-so-slightly. “Was this every one the base owned?”

“Yep!” Mythra says, brightly. _She_ seems more at ease, at least.

Jade smiles, just to unsettle Hubert. “Replacements come out of Citan’s paycheck, after all.”

Something about Jade’s vindictive tone seems to strike a chord with Hubert. He doesn’t smile, exactly, but suddenly he doesn’t look like he minds this much at all, either.

“Carry on, then,” he tells them, and walks away.

\- - -

Citan didn’t _say_ Jade had to talk to Galea, but Jade goes to talk to Galea, anyway, to update her. And because he came up with something last night that will not only buy them more time, but should also work in their favor in the long run. Honestly, he’s not sure why he didn’t think of it sooner.

Galea isn’t in the kitchen when he gets to the labs. Instead she’s at her desk. So is Klaus. Galea sits in the desk chair, her feet propped up on something beneath the desk, nursing a cup of coffee as she stares Klaus down. Klaus has his weight braced on the desk, leaning over Galea.

“I do not see the point of you keeping this up—” Klaus is saying, “—seeing her every day… that… Galea, doesn’t that _hurt_?”

“I’m fine, Klaus.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

Galea shrugs, delicately, though her tone is challenging. “Maybe I’m enjoying building a new relationship with my daughter. Is that a crime?”

“How long will it last?” Klaus counters. “How long before Citan decides he’s tired of babysitting her and—”

“Ahem,” Jade interjects, because he doesn’t want to hear any more of this.

Klaus straightens from attempting to intimidate Galea, turning his head to see Jade, though his hand lingers on Galea’s desk. Galea twists her chair more Jade’s direction, her feet meeting the floor again.

“Oh, Jade!” Galea says, brightly. “You’re early.”

“Yes, well, I have something to tell you that I shouldn’t say while Citan is in the labs,” Jade answers, though he supposes Citan _wouldn’t_ be in the lab today, since he shirked that responsibility onto… someone else. Jade doesn’t know who, but he hopes it’s someone Mythra can get along with. Anyway. He looks at Klaus, wary, though he can’t really think of a reason Klaus shouldn’t be here for the conversation, nor does it look like Klaus would listen if Jade told him to go.

“What is it?” Klaus asks, and his tone speaks of interest. Yes, he definitely wouldn’t go if Jade told him to.

That’s fine. Jade supposes Galea can’t do all the work herself. Which brings him to:

“Where’s Anna?” he asks, because if they’re going to want him to explain, he’d rather do it all at once.

“Sleeping,” Galea answers.

Klaus grimaces. “I wouldn’t… bother her, if we don’t have to,” he says, rather gentle. “She’s not up for much of anything lately. The sooner we get her out of here, the better.”

“Myyah’s with Anna, before you ask,” Galea adds.

“Noted,” Jade answers, because he was going to.

“Did you need her?”

“Not necessarily. One of you could always explain the situation to her later, if you think you must.” Jade fixes his glasses. “I’ve come to request something difficult from you, is all. But if this works, it will make getting out of here much easier.”

Klaus and Galea stare at him for a few seconds, then exchange glances, then turn to him again, expressions identical.

“What do you need?” Galea asks.

“For you to create another blade,” Jade says. “As it stands, our biggest hurdle is figuring out how to get four noncombatants out of a high-security base when you will have, at best, two blades to do the fighting.”

“At _best_?” Klaus interjects. Jade ignores him.

“If you could even out the numbers a little, that would do wonders,” Jade continues, and then holds his hands behind his back as he waits for their answer.

Galea’s expression is tight, but thoughtful. Her fingers drum against the side of her coffee mug. “I suppose…” she says, slowly, as she works her thoughts out, “that we wouldn’t need to make them Aegis-level in strength. If we can even just make another one at Mythra’s strength…”

“I suppose…” Klaus agrees, but he looks uneasy.

“It would help,” Jade assures them. Adding only one extra blade to the equation doesn’t help them _a lot_ , but he dare not ask they make more than one if they do not want to. He’s already asking that they create one blade simply to use the blade as a tool to secure their freedom, which quite honestly doesn’t sit entirely well in his core. _But,_ he can rest safely in the knowledge that once they are free, the blade will be more than just a tool.

“Citan won’t be suspicious?” Galea asks, cautious. She holds her coffee mug much like she’s forgotten it’s still there, regardless of how her fingers tap idly against its side.

“I bet he’d be thrilled that we’re working again,” Klaus says. He’s slumped against Galea’s desk at this point, expression sour. “Unless… Would it be better if we didn’t tell him? Can we even get away with that?” He meets Jade’s eyes, looking for an answer.

“Mm, best not try,” Jade suggests. “That’d be an awfully tedious secret to keep. Besides, if the committee decides you’re working too slow…”

“We just have to make sure to resonate with them before anyone else can,” Galea says. “But I guess that shouldn’t be hard.”

“Falsify the reports, maybe. Say we’re one step behind where we actually are,” Klaus adds. He looks to Jade again, but this expression is a little more like he’s calculated something and doesn’t like the results. “Do you really think one blade would be enough—”

From down the hall, where the bedrooms are, a door slams open.

Everyone’s attention snaps that direction in unison.

Myyah doesn’t quite run down the hallway to meet them, but it’s a near thing.

“We’re all completely stupid,” Myyah says, with absolutely no preamble. “There are two Aegises for a reason.”

“What?” Klaus says.

Myyah puts her weight on Klaus’ desk, which is where she stopped. She leans towards them, eyes dark and gleeful.

“ _There are two Aegises for a reason,_ ” she repeats.

“Ah,” Jade says, because guessing that reason isn’t so difficult. He wonders if he should prompt Klaus and Galea along, but—

“Oh,” Klaus says suddenly, with feeling.

“Oh,” Galea echoes, a second later.

Well, they are both geniuses, after all.

“We’re so stupid,” Myyah repeats, leaning her weight back, running a hand through her hair as she laughs. “We’ve been having trouble all this time because we were trying to cram power into _one_ blade when there was never meant to be _just one._ They come in _pairs!_ They’re _supposed to come in pairs!!_ ” She sounds positively gleeful.

“That would offset the strain put on their driver,” Klaus agrees, rubbing at his chin. “But—to wield the full of their power as a set and _only as a set,_ they must be able to pass ether or information between themselves somehow.”

“Could the driver be a conduit?” Galea suggests.

Klaus shakes his head, but Myyah beats him to answering.

“No, no, it has to be without the driver,” she insists. “If the driver was a conduit then they’d only be stable if they were in the same resonance loop, and history proves otherwise. They must have _another_ means…”

“…of communicating with each other, yes,” Klaus agrees, pushing off of Galea’s desk, buzzing with energy. “If we could figure that out—”

“We could make two blades,” Galea suggests. “That would be better numbers—”

“It would,” Jade agrees, since she’s looking at him.

“—and it gives us a clear _excuse_ to make two, as well!” Galea continues.

“I’ll start running the math,” Klaus says, sliding around Myyah to access his desk, rapidly trying to get his computer to work at the same time he rummages notebooks out of his drawers. “It’s funny, I’m almost excited to be working again.” He grimaces, looks to Galea. “Is that bad of me…?”

Galea laughs, swiveling completely around in her chair to watch Klaus scramble. “I mean, we’re working to escape, not to toss more blades on their pyre, I think that’s an acceptable reason to be enjoying yourself.”

“Also? Sometimes numbers fun,” Klaus adds, grinning.

“Wait…” Myyah interjects, watching them with a scowl. “I mean, I suppose we do need out of here… but we won’t be creating Aegises, then?”

“Why should we?” Galea asks, taking a smug drink of her coffee.

“It _is_ what we were hired for…” Myyah hedges, but she’s met with three identical pairs of eyebrows raised in the question of _yeah, and?_ She sniffs. “It’s just…”

“Believe me,” Jade interjects, his smile bright and intentionally unnerving. “If how they’ve treated your prototypes up until now wasn’t proof enough, what they intend for any Aegis or Aegises you actually produce isn’t much better.”

( _He told himself he wouldn’t tell them._

_It was only a year ago, but somehow that feels like a lifetime ago._

_Besides, circumstances are different now, aren’t they?_ )

Jade intends to stop talking there, but he’s fixed with curious, judging stares from his friends, and he supposes that’s what he should have expected from them. He sighs, shoulders slumping, half for show.

“Galea, you might want to put your coffee to the side, so you don’t spill it in your shock,” Jade begins.

“Comforting,” Galea says, skeptically, but she listens, setting her coffee on her desk, her chair turned towards Jade. Klaus sets his stack of papers down and waits. Myyah wrings her hands together.

Jade fiddles with the side of his glasses. “It wasn’t something you were informed of, because knowing likely would have caused you to refuse to sign on the project at all. Granted, there’s not much to _know,_ but…” Well, he won’t get to the point if he keeps dancing around it like this. “Has Anna ever mentioned the Aegis cannons before?”

Galea and Klaus and Myyah exchange looks, the lack of recognition on their faces already telling of their answer.

“I don’t think so,” Klaus says, then looks to Myyah. “Unless…?”

Myyah shakes her head. “N… no,” she answers, which isn’t confidence-inspiring. “She didn’t,” she insists. “Or if she did, it was in passing.”

Jade doesn’t have the time to waste picking a more solid answer out of Myyah, and honestly that Anna mentioned it but not in detail isn’t a very hard thing to believe.

“As far as I can tell, the cannons were built to strip an Aegis of their power and use that stolen power as a weapon,” Jade explains. He thinks of the pod he inspected, the thoroughness of the restraints, and he shudders.

“History speaks of cities razed during the Aegis war…” Galea says, slowly, looking sick. “And they led us to believe it was the Aegises themselves who caused the destruction.”

“That’s…” Myyah begins, but can’t find the words to finish.

Klaus swallows. “Aegises are meant to generate their own ether, rather than just serving as a conduit for the ambient ether,” he whispers, his gaze fixed in the distance instead of on any of his friends. Horror sits in the very pits of his cheeks. “They would be living batteries.”

“I can’t imagine the experience is pleasant,” Jade agrees, his tone much brighter than it rightly should be.

Klaus scoffs, once, grabs a stack of paper as if he wishes to throw it off his desk. “Every time I think we humans can’t come up with something worse… This project keeps surprising me.”

“That’s why we’re leaving,” Galea says.

“That’s why we’re leaving,” Klaus echoes, sighing. He decides he’s not going to throw the contents of his desk on the floor. “Think we can do it in less than three months, this time?”

Galea shrugs to counter the wry glint in Klaus’ eyes. “We might be able to,” she says, then looks to Jade. “Do we realistically have three months?”

“Mmm,” Jade says, as he thinks it over. “If it’s obvious you’re working, yes.”

“Anna might not have three months,” Myyah says, like it’s a nail in a coffin. The half-joking mood Klaus and Galea were working back up is immediately extinguished. They don’t refute Myyah’s words.

That’s not comforting.

“How is Anna?” Jade asks. “I seem to keep missing her.”

How long it takes anyone to answer the question is almost more telling than anything they could possibly say. Myyah deliberately avoids the looks Klaus and Galea both try and send at her, ducking her head down, expression pained. Galea slumps in her chair. Klaus hisses between clenched teeth.

“That bad?” Jade asks, too worried to laugh.

“She’s… not great,” Klaus says.

“She really isn’t,” Myyah agrees. “I’m doing what I can but she—if she’s not sleeping all day…”

“…or otherwise distracted,” Klaus adds.

“She just…” Myyah fumbles with words, her heart breaking behind her eyes. “I don’t know if the grief finally broke her…”

“It’s the captivity,” Klaus insists, with a certainty that makes Myyah look like she swallowed something foul. “It’s destroying her. And I say that quite literally.”

“Can you do something, Jade? Find a way to get her out of here, even if the rest of us have to stay?” Myyah pleads, her voice cracking. “Please. The last thing I want to see is Anna dead.”

Jade breathes, very carefully. His core is cold. The apathy singing inside of him is all too easy to tune into.

“Getting just one of you out would surely condemn the rest of you,” he says. “They would tighten security on the labs. Unless the committee decides to separate the four of you, or shuffle Anna off to another project…”

Neither of those things will happen. Keeping the four of them here in the labs makes it easier to keep track of them, easier to keep them locked up. And Anna is functionally useless to the Tethe’allan government if she is not working on the artificial Aegis project. Unless they decide she knows too much and she’d be better dead, there’s no hope of her getting moved elsewhere.

“Can’t you twist Citan’s arm?” Galea asks.

Jade nearly bursts out laughing. “I doubt it.”

“If not that, then I’ve seen you forge his signature before,” Klaus says. “You could always write up ‘official’ orders…”

“And tip Citan off to the fact I’m working to get you out of here? I think not,” Jade counters.

“Jade…” Myyah begins, still pleading.

Jade holds up a hand to stop her. “I am not promising something I cannot provide,” he insists. And he can tell that Klaus and Galea want to keep workshopping the idea, because their attitudes, their posture, their tones all speak of that in the same way Mythra’s do when she wants to toss around ideas. But they are not Mythra. They do not even come close to comprehending what he is up against.

He’s not going through this charade with them.

“Good luck on your work,” he tells them, crisply, and he leaves.

\- - -

Myyah sits on her bed, Anna curled around her legs, sleeping fitfully. Myyah has a notebook perched precariously on the only part of her thigh that Anna isn’t clinging to, and it is over the notebook that Myyah hunches, frantically scribbling out calculations. Klaus and Galea have made some headway on the dual loop already, but they are all still lacking a few critical pieces that make an Aegis, and Myyah has almost, _almost_ figured it out…

Anna fidgets in her sleep, expression pained. Myyah pauses her work long enough to run soothing fingers through Anna’s hair, shushing her gently until the nightmare fades. She has so many nightmares, lately. But the nightmares, at least, she forgets.

Too often, Myyah has seen Anna curled up and feral in some corner of the labs, convinced that there is a threat that no one else sees, convinced that her feeble margin of freedom is going to end and she will be locked up more thoroughly than she already has been. Too much, has Myyah seen of Anna screaming and crying and _furious,_ always furious… Myyah absently runs her fingers over the aching bruises on the inside of her forearm, where Anna had grabbed her nearly tight enough to dislocate a joint had she only finished the motion of twisting. Where Anna got that strength, where Anna learned such thorough means of self-defense, none of them know, not even Anna.

The nightmare subsides. Myyah turns back to her work. She wishes she didn’t have to, but she can’t sit around and do nothing, not while she watches her girlfriend waste away. Anna loves freedom more than she loves Myyah and that’s… That’s okay. It just means Myyah needs to work faster. If she finishes, maybe they can leave.

That was the deal, wasn’t it? They create an Aegis, and they’re free to go.

“Myyah,” Anna croaks, fingers digging into the folds of Myyah’s pants.

“Shh,” Myyah whispers back, pen still moving across the page. “Just go back to sleep, Anna. It’s going to be okay.”

“…Architect, are you _working_?” Anna groans, ignoring Myyah completely, which honestly Myyah could have predicted. She doesn’t really shift upright, but she does tilt her head that direction, cheek pressed against Myyah’s thigh. “Put that down, come on.”

“In a bit.”

“Myyah.”

“I have to work, Anna.”

“You really don’t.” There’s an edge of anger in Anna’s voice, but better that, Myyah supposes, than the fear, the confusion. “I don’t want to sacrifice another child to them—”

“Neither do I,” Myyah agrees. The thought makes her sick. But better sick, she’s decided, than the cold, gaping fear, that the thought of Anna dying leaves her with. She hates to think that Anna would actually… but… She takes a deep breath. Pushes the thought away. “But one child for your freedom…”

“I’m not worth that,” Anna interjects, quiet and furious. “I’m not.”

“Well,” Myyah says, feeling her heart begin to break, but knowing that this is an unfair trade to make, no matter who is being sacrificed.

“Unless,” Anna says.

Myyah blinks. “Unless…?” she repeats.

Anna’s eyes are distant, not fixed on Myyah at all, her knuckles turning pale from how tightly she grips the fabric of Myyah’s pants. “I mean, it’s not—I don’t want anything horrible happening to our children—but if there was a way… spring the trap… fight our way out… wouldn’t be the first time…” Her voice gets quick, words mumbled under her breath; Myyah understands the words but not quite their application, not quite here.

“Are you suggesting… we gamble with our children?” Myyah asks, very slowly, trying to pick some sense out of it.

Anna’s hands flex on Myyah’s pants—grab, let go, grab, let go.

“I just. I’d hate to give them up. If we couldn’t also take them back.”

“Oh.”

“But—” Anna’s hands settle on gripping Myyah’s legs, holding them tight. “But it’s not worth—I’m not worth— _Goddess_ I want out but I could never sell one of my fucking children—I’d never live with myself—I’d never— _he’d_ never—”

“Shh,” Myyah interjects softly, petting Anna’s hair, hoping to pull her out of whatever spiral she’s going down. “Shh, it’s okay, it’s okay,” she repeats. A string of soothing nonsense, but Anna doesn’t fight it. She winds down, fitfully, but she _winds down_ , eyes flickering, drooping.

Only when she’s asleep again does Myyah return to her work.

Or rather, to the edge of the page, where she scribbles down a few ideas for some failsafes.

\- - -

Jade’s fidgeting.

Jade isn’t the kind of man who fidgets.

And yet his leg bounces under his desk, and has been for the past five minutes, and it’s that more than anything that makes Mythra look up from the paperwork she’s poking at, though the constant buzz of Jade’s stress under Citan’s apathy has been very distracting, to be quite honest. She’s sitting on the floor with her back to the side of the chair Jade’s sitting in, because, listen, she was tired of the armchair and needed room to put several stacks of paperwork, anyway. And it’s not worth investing in another chair if they don’t also invest in another desk, and to be honest, Citan wouldn’t provide either, anyway.

Jade keeps fidgeting.

“Jade,” Mythra says, leaning her head back to look up at him.

He stops moving.

“Is something wrong?” he asks, his tone too bright, too fake.

“I’m the one who should be asking that question,” Mythra shoots back, scowling. He won’t even look down at her. What an ass. “You seem stressed.”

“I’m always stressed.”

“…point.”

Mythra sighs.

“Three months,” Jade says, apropos of nothing. “Three months, and then this is over. Assuming your parents can work that fast, anyway. I find myself wondering if they wouldn’t work faster if only they stopped chasing that theory of theirs and just got down to the basics; after all it’s not like it matters if the blades they’re making do what they say they’re testing for or not, we’ll be out of here long before anyone checks. Provided everything goes to plan, anyway.”

Wow, this is way more concrete than anything he had months ago. “What… is the plan, then?” Mythra asks, trying to hold back the delight she feels, hearing him talk so openly and confidently about this at all. “I mean, extra manpower makes an easier escape, got that, but, uh. Timing?”

“They’ll tell us the blades are done before they tell the committee or Citan, and then resonate with them, one each,” Jade says, coolly. He seems slightly more relaxed, at least in that he’s stopped fidgeting, but the stress in the emotion bleed hasn’t exactly diminished, and neither has the tightness in his shoulders. “And once we have the news that they’re ready, we’ll take care of Citan and…”

He stops, there. And he doesn’t say anything. For a while.

“And?” Mythra prompts, finally, still looking up at him.

His mouth works with the words a few times before he gets them out.

“I’ll eat his heart, I guess,” he says, quiet.

“Rather gamble your health than your memories?” Mythra asks, surprised, though maybe she shouldn’t have asked. Especially given how Jade’s shell-shocked expression clouds over and he starts deflecting again.

“Even if I could trust the memory patch to work, Citan would never let me pull it off.”

The fidgeting, again. Mythra scowls at first Jade’s bouncing leg, then up at Jade himself.

“Jade,” she repeats. “You good?”

He sighs. He stops. He leans away from his paperwork.

“It’s the 28th,” he says, like it explains everything.

Mythra leans forward so she can look around his desk to the calendar he has hanging by his door. It… sure is the 28th. It’s not like he’s marked the day with anything special, though. But, Jade must have _some_ kind of reason, so Mythra considers the month instead. What's so special about Aska 28th?

Oh.

Wait a minute.

“That’s one of the dates on your note,” Mythra says, twisting to look at Jade again.

“Seven years,” he agrees, “since I wrote it. Ten that I’ve been driven by Citan. That I counted, anyway.”

It punches Mythra in the stomach, it buries itself underneath her skin, leaving a sickness in her gut that simmers. _Ten years._ Ten years! Mythra can barely even imagine that long. It makes her angry, but that anger doesn’t taste good with her sickness, and the strength of it is sapped by Citan’s apathy, ever present as a hole in the back of her mind.

Architect, no wonder Jade feels like shit.

Mythra runs a hand over her face, and then decides: fuck it! She can’t fix all of Jade’s problems, not right now, but she can do one thing for him, she thinks. She piles the paperwork up and pushes it to the side.

“Hey, come here,” Mythra tells Jade.

He raises his eyebrows at her. She pats the floor in front of her.

“Come on, come sit,” Mythra persists.

“On the floor?”

“Humor me.”

Jade considers her for a long moment, looking over his glasses at her, but then he slides those back up on his nose to where they belong. He shrugs.

“Alright,” Jade says, and he humors her.

“No, no, turn around.”

“Like this?”

“Yeah, like that, I want to braid your hair.”

“You what.”

“I did it for Galea sometimes. Or she braided mine. Klaus honestly has just enough hair for it if you get creative. Anyway. It always helped Galea relax. So I thought…” Here, Mythra trails off, trying to gauge Jade’s reaction, which she’s finding a little difficult since he’s got his back to her now. His response to the suggestion was kind of icy, but she’s not sure if it was in the margin of like, being okay? So, uh. “Is that okay with you?”

Jade hesitates for a long moment, not moving, not turning to look at Mythra. The emotion bleed is functionally unreadable, muddled with Mythra’s own anxiety under Citan’s apathy.

Finally Jade shrugs, again.

“Well, go ahead, I guess,” he tells her. “I don’t see what it would hurt.”

“Cool,” Mythra says, and starts braiding.

Normally she’d talk, but she’s honestly so nervous that words have left her brain entirely, and Jade doesn’t seem exactly forthcoming on any conversation topics, which… given his stress, is fair. This doesn’t feel at all the same as those old memories of her hands in Galea’s hair while Galea laughs, talking shit about usually Klaus, the atmosphere bright and clear. But Jade… does start to relax. The tension ebbs out of his shoulders, just a little.

Mythra calls it a success.

“There you go,” Mythra tells him. “All done.”

Jade reaches up to feel the braid, tentatively, then turns over his shoulder to Mythra. He looks kind of weird with his hair up, actually, his scowl seeming somehow more pronounced, and his cheekbones looking kind of naked. Next time she won’t put _all_ of his hair up, she decides.

“Thank you,” he says, in a cadence that suggests he can’t quite figure out if he should actually be thanking her or not. And then he gets back up and returns to his paperwork.

They don’t talk after that, simply doing paperwork in silence. Jade’s changed his fidgeting from leg bouncing to occasionally playing with the braid _,_ but that’s the kind of fidget that feels more like he’s still getting used to the braid, and less that he’s stressed. After all, the emotion bleed feels… lighter, in a way. It’s a start.

Mythra wants to tell him that he only has to put up with three more months, and then it won’t matter. She wants to tell him that it definitely won’t be another ten years of this mess. But before she can quite pin the words down, Jade hums his _well, paperwork time is over_ hum. He slides his chair back from his desk, and then reaches up and starts undoing the braid.

Mythra scowls before she can help herself. “What, hate it that much?” she asks, and it’s meant to be a joke, but it still kind of stings in her core.

“No,” Jade assures her. “I actually… enjoyed it.” The admission is hesitant, but it is an admission, and that’s not how his face looks like when he’s lying, or teasing. He’s being sincere. At least, until his lips quirk upwards into a wry smile. “I just can’t exactly be seen with a braid all of a sudden. People would talk.”

He means _Citan would ask questions,_ and you know what? Mythra can’t fault him for not wanting to deal with that.

“Right,” she whispers, her core breaking for an entirely different reason it was when he first started undoing the braid. Feeling rather smacked in the face by how _this is just their life now, and it sucks,_ she slumps where she sits, head resting against the back wall. She can’t even muster up the desire to tell Jade to have fun and don’t die when he leaves. The joke feels like too much like ash on her tongue.

\- - -

“Galea,” Klaus says, slowly, as he squints at his computer screen. He’s sorting through the code for the twins—what they’re currently calling the blades they’re working on, since they are only sure that one of them should be named Pyra and don’t have another name picked out yet—making sure that the code looks correct before they go about trying to initialize either blade into a core crystal.

And, this does all look correct, except…

“ _Galea_ ,” Klaus repeats, and gives up waiting for her to spin around from her computer to face him; it’s not like their desks are _that_ far apart. “Why is the code for the memory patch in here? I mean, I wouldn’t mind giving it a second go around, but it doesn’t even look like you made any changes to it.”

Galea goes very, very still. She doesn’t quite turn around to look at him.

That’s interesting.

“Did you want me to make changes to it?” Klaus ventures, even though he’s pretty sure the answer isn’t going to be yes. “I suppose I could poke at it again…”

Galea slowly pushes her chair away from her desk and rolls over to Klaus, stopping when she’s on the opposite side of his desk. She leans towards him across it, expression somewhat sick, and more than sick, _guilty._

“I didn’t change it because it isn’t broken,” she tells him, at a whisper.

“What,” Klaus says, dumbstruck.

“It’s not broken,” Galea repeats, her voice quiet enough that it makes Klaus lean towards her in an attempt to hear her a little better. “It worked.”

“Galea,” Klaus says, at a loss for all other words, because if she is telling him—

“Mythra remembers.”

“It _worked_!?” Klaus shouts, and Galea about leaps across his desk to try and put her hand over his mouth, which doesn’t work because it’s a rather bulky desk and leaning around his computer to look at him is one thing, launching past it is another. “Galea you can’t just— _Galea._ ” He repeats her name because he has nothing else, repeats her name because this is almost too much to take in.

“ _Klaus,_ I swear, you have to stop shouting—”

“Galea!”

“If you wake Anna up or alert the guards—”

“And- And why _shouldn’t_ I wake Anna!?” Klaus demands, finally managing to grasp those words. He gestures towards the direction of the hallway, his own chair rolling backwards with the movement and his distress. “She deserves to know her code worked—she deserves to know that Mythra—”

“ _Mythra dies if Citan finds out_ ,” Galea hisses, furious, and Klaus shuts up at _dies_ and lets his arm fall at _finds out,_ slowly slumping back in his chair as Galea finishes. He struggles to inhale after that, his lungs not quite wanting to do it, as the weight of that settles into his understanding.

“I can keep a secret,” Klaus says finally, defeated, though he’s not quite sure he’s hurt.

“Jade insisted I not tell, especially since… if Anna were any less…” She gestures, vaguely, towards the hallway. Which room, exactly, Anna and Myyah are in right now is up for debate, but either way, Klaus understands what Galea is getting at. “I love Anna, I do,” Galea insists, “but she has no filter.”

“Yeah,” Klaus agrees, because he’s well aware. “It still doesn’t feel right, though, not telling her. She was…” He reaches for words, but the extent to which Anna was beating herself up over Mythra’s lack of memory and Anna’s own perceived failure are difficult to recount. “Galea, she hated herself, that it didn’t work—"

“I know,” Galea says, expression pinched, tired. “I know. We can tell her the truth once we’re out of here. And maybe she’ll forgive me for keeping it a secret.” Galea drums her fingers on the arm of her chair. “I wish I didn’t have to. But I’ve- I’ve never seen Jade look so serious, so _genuine,_ as when he made me promise. To tell would be to betray his trust. Even this…”

“I won’t blab,” Klaus insists. “But… would Citan really…” He begins the question, and then he doesn’t need to finish it, because he answers it himself, and he laughs. “Who am I kidding? Of course Citan would. The mess he tried to clean up by killing Mythra didn’t exactly get cleaned up if she _remembers_ all of it. Architect.” He hisses, anger a familiar companion. “The sooner the both of them are away from him, the better.”

“Agreed,” Galea says. “So get back to double-checking my work. Then we can all get out of here.”

“Right,” Klaus says, finding himself somehow invigorated now, filled with energy like he hasn’t been for months. His daughter remembers him. _His daughter remembers him!_ Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t that beautiful?

They just have to get out of here so he can tell her that.

\- - -

“Do you really think this will work?” Jade asks.

“You just don’t think it will,” Mythra counters, glaring at him just a little. He’s got a point, but, he could at _least_ pretend to support her ideas more wholeheartedly sometimes.

“How should I know? Foresight is _your_ ability, not mine.”

They’re both sitting on the floor of Jade’s room, for continued lack of better seating options available. Even though they don’t know if this will work, they can at least both agree that physical contact makes ether transfers between blades significantly easier to do.

“I think it’s worth a shot,” Mythra says, all sharp smiles and faked confidence that she figures Jade feels, but appreciates him not commenting on. The fact she’s never pushed Foresight more than, like, two minutes into the future definitely gives her some doubts, but maybe if they gave it a power boost? The logic _holds,_ and Jade is the most powerful blade she knows, barring, you know, an Aegis or an Aegis prototype. “Besides,” she adds, a little more sincerely, not quite meeting Jade’s eyes. “There’s no reason _not_ to try. Maybe it’ll tell us something. We could use all the intel we can get.”

Jade fixes his glasses, like he always does when he needs a second to stall. His smile might not be wholly sincere, but it doesn’t feel entirely condescending. “You have a point,” he allows.

She holds her hand out and wiggles her fingers, impatient. Jade sighs and takes her hand.

She knew his ether was going to be cold and yet she still wasn’t prepared for it, prepared for the sensation of ice in her veins, smooth but _freezing,_ sliding down her throat. Mythra grits her teeth and closes her eyes, bearing it. At least light and ice aren’t diametrically opposed elements, so though they don’t combine as cleanly as ice might with, say, water, there’s no backfire under Mythra’s skin, just a raging, subzero river she has to sink her feet down into the bed of and stand her ground against. _Architect,_ Jade’s feeding her a lot of ether.

Well, go big or go home, right?

Mythra gathers Jade’s ether in her grasp and concentrates, tapping into the bit of her core where Foresight is kept. She gets a flicker of images, of insights—things that are bound to happen in the next few seconds—but she ignores those. Instead she takes Jade’s ether and she _pours._

Mostly, it just gives her a headache. She holds onto the brittle connection anyway, ignores Jade’s doubt and concern.

“Keep feeding me ether,” she instructs. “Almost got it.”

The latter thing is a lie, but, Jade doesn’t need to know that. Because, in all honesty, Mythra can’t even really tell how far into the future she _is_ pushing Foresight to show her. It’s not like it comes with a timestamp. Her only metric for how well it’s working is how much her head feels like it’s going to explode.

But just like every time she’s nudged Foresight to give her more than a few seconds before, she just kind of thinks of a timeframe, and _wishes,_ and _reaches_ for it. A few months out is so far, but it’s there she reaches, anyway. It’s there she _has_ to reach. Honestly, though Mythra would _like_ answers, she’ll settle just for knowing they make it out—

A vision comes to her.

_sweat on her brow_

_her ether tight and jangling in her veins_

_anger fear anger_

_Jade’s spear slammed through her—_

Jade abruptly snaps the flow of ether and yanks his hand away from hers. Mythra’s not sure if she’s grateful he stopped it—was that really something from the _future_? It can’t have been!—or if she wants to ask him what the fuck, actually, but then.

But then she notes Jade is smiling his tightest, politest smile over her shoulder, and that the resonance link sings with Citan’s proximity. Oh, shit. How long has he been there? How much did he- Architect this is an awkward picture isn’t it- fuck, shit, did he _feel_ all that ether—

“Did you need something, sir?” Jade asks, all polite and voice free of barbs, as if he didn’t mind being interrupted at all, as if Mythra wasn’t well aware the entire reason he has issues with his door opening randomly is because Citan _always does_ _this_. Jade’s so much better at this than Mythra is, it almost makes her jealous.

Citan doesn’t ask what they were doing. That’s… worse, actually.

“Can you help me with something, Jade?” Citan asks, instead.

Jade nods and gets to his feet. Mythra gets to hers, too, but Citan shoots her a _look,_ and it’s not sharp enough to be called disgust, but Mythra can tell she’s not wanted. From her driver, it feels like a slap to the face, even if she doesn’t _actually_ care what he thinks.

“Just Jade,” Citan says, as if the look didn’t do enough. “Though I appreciate you wanting to help, Mythra. It just won’t be necessary.”

Yeah, sure. He “appreciates” it. Mythra only just refrains from rolling her eyes.

Jade nods for Citan to lead the way rather than speaking, which Mythra notes as weird. The little smile Jade sends her before he leaves the room after Citan and closes the door behind him is _also_ weird—from him, that’s almost a goodbye hug! Mythra stares at the closed door for a second or two, trying to figure out _what_ the _fuck…_

…and then she really, properly takes stock of the emotion bleed.

Dread flows like a river from Jade, overwhelming, all-consuming. Like he’s walking to his death.

Citan… wouldn’t, right? Well, of course, he _would,_ but. Not _now,_ right? Not- not Jade, not before Mythra, that doesn’t make any sense.

Worry wrapped around her throat like iron claws, Mythra checks Foresight, pushes it—but it’s burnt out after how far she pushed it, earlier. She definitely isn’t going to get the minutes or hours ahead she’ll need to tell. _Fuck._ Shit.

She stays put, though. If she’s _wrong,_ and she makes even one misstep, like running after them to prevent something that doesn’t actually need preventing, it’ll be a death sentence for the both of them. And if her horrible hunch is right, and Citan _does_ kill Jade, well. Then he won’t live much longer, after that. Mythra will see to it.

And… maybe Jade’s rubbed off on her, but after she’s decided on her if/then murder, she realizes that that’s… not enough. She can decide to kill Citan all she wants, but what if something goes wrong? What if something goes wrong, and she’s not there when Jade wakes back up?

Well… there _is_ something she can do about that. And she’d be a fool not to do it.

Mythra counts to a hundred before she moves, and then to two hundred just to be sure that Jade and Citan aren’t on their way _back._ She wouldn’t dare be so reckless with Jade’s secrets.

Once she’s sure no one’s coming—and she checks Foresight twice just to be sure, even though it makes her head burn—Mythra slides over to Jade’s bookshelf. It takes her a second to remember which book it was, having only remembered its general location as being on the bottom shelf, but she has it after a moment. She tugs Jade’s note out, fishes a pen out of his desk, flips the note onto the back and begins writing.

\- - -

> **_If you ever get to four tallies, just kill him._ **
> 
> **_Yeah, you’ll probably end up in the military blade pool, which I’ll admit probably won’t be glamorous but trust me I don’t think it could possibly get shittier than this. Your next driver WILL be better._ **
> 
> **_I know you like keeping your memories, but if he dies day one you won’t have any memories to lose. And I’m tired of watching how he treats you. He treats you like shit! And you shouldn’t have to grovel and scrape for a driver who’d sooner kill you than care about you. You shouldn’t have to live each day dreading_ **
> 
> **_Sorry. Guess I got a little carried away._ **
> 
> **_Please don’t let this get to five tallies, Jade. Please._ **
> 
> **_\- Mythra (a concerned friend)_ **
> 
> **_Uh PS if you wake up memoryless and I’m gone then see if you can find Galea or Klaus or Myyah or Anna, if they’re still around. You can trust them. They’re your friends, too._ **

\- - -

Jade comes back.

The relief Mythra feels is kind of embarrassing, if she thinks about it too much.

Jade doesn’t comment.

She’s not sure if she’s glad about that or not.

\- - -

“What did Foresight show you, anyway?” Jade asks, sitting down at his desk to do paperwork. He doesn’t mention Citan, or what Citan wanted him for, which Mythra takes as cue to not fucking ask about it. That’s fine.

Mythra keeps standing, or rather, half-fidgeting half-pacing in the center of the room, too wound up to really just… go sit down. It’s been a stressful handful of hours.

“Oh,” she says, rubbing her hands together rapidly, just for the sensation, the movement. “Nothing useful, I think? Honestly I think—” She swallows. The images still bounce around in her head, crisp and yet muddled, the idea of a picture rather than the picture itself. “I know Hubert was saying things about, like, trauma things, being weird. So I…”

She’s babbling. Jade raises his eyebrows at her.

“The only concrete thing I got was you stabbing me,” she says, voice tight, tinny to her own ears. Her face feels so hot, which is wild, because Jade’s room is just freezing as a baseline. “So—I’m not even sure. I probably pushed it too far. What a bust.”

Jade doesn’t say anything for a moment, but he’s not even really multitasking with the paperwork. He’s just looking at her, all while she paces a hole into his floor. Okay, not literally, but.

“You look rather fidgety,” Jade comments, and Mythra’s face gets even _hotter_ , this time with more legitimate shame which she promptly forgets about when Jade continues: “Would you like to try braiding my hair again?”

The offer is measured and careful, Jade’s expression too neutral to really read. It stops Mythra dead in her tracks regardless, too startled to do anything other than stare.

“I’m afraid I’m lacking any other idle things to do short of paperwork, and you seem too wound up for that,” Jade continues, lightly, into her silence.

“Do,” Mythra says, “you mind?”

Jade shrugs, noncommittal in a way that seems more practiced than genuine, but Jade is always a bitch to read, and _just got back from dealing with Citan_ means he’s even harder to decipher because now his masks have masks. Still: “You said you and Galea used to do it to relax, and I’m not about to attempt braiding _your_ hair. So if you want to give mine another go, I’d be okay with that.”

Is this a roundabout way of asking her to do it anyway, more for him instead of her? Mythra can’t tell, and also can’t really care. She really would like to have something to think about that isn’t several layers of potential or previous murder. She moves around Jade’s desk so she can stand behind him, saying only: “Sit up a little straighter, thanks,” before she starts braiding, this time leaving the strands that normally fall over his shoulders where they are. It’ll put only about half of his hair up this way, but maybe that’ll look good.

“So, do you want to try pushing your Foresight to tell us anything again?” Jade asks, conversational, as Mythra parts his hair.

“Not today, I have a fucking headache now,” she answers, to start. “Also it’s really hard to get exact dates? Anything after a minute or so loses precision.”

“It didn’t work, is what you’re saying.”

“If you say ‘I told you so’ I’m gonna do something really dumb with your hair,” Mythra spits. “Besides, maybe it just didn’t work because—” She doesn’t want to say Citan’s name. “Because we got interrupted. We can try again, just…”

“Not while you have a headache,” Jade says, in a tone that suggests he won’t be argued with. Mythra doesn’t intend to—not on this one, anyway.

“Yeah, definitely not,” she agrees.

“…you said you had a vision of me stabbing you?”

“I mean, it was _your_ spear. But—Ugh.” Mythra stops to breathe, mostly so she doesn’t yank on Jade’s hair, because she has the feeling he’d be more upset about that than Galea ever was. “Look, I don’t know anything about trauma and I’m not about to ask Hubert, but for all I know that could have been a memory and not a vision.” She kind of hates having to say it, but she doesn’t want Jade to have to think about having to do a repeat of—you know.

“Right,” Jade says, and he sounds fairly… Mythra wouldn’t say _relaxed,_ but he’s at a kind of level sort of emotion that’s maybe a little distant, but that’s gotta be better than outright distress. There’s a calculating tone under it, too. “It’s just, it gave me an idea.”

It what.

“Are you actually about to suggest- suggesting killing me again?”

“Hear me out.”

“ _Jade._ ”

“You’ll die when Citan dies,” Jade presses on, despite Mythra’s protests. He isn’t even doing paperwork at all, just sitting very still while Mythra does his hair. “There’s no avoiding that. He only has one heart, and I’m not about to find out if other organs will do the job when you don’t even want to become a flesh eater. Unless you do?”

“Pass.”

“That’s what I thought. Which brings me to: do you want to be there while I’m breaking your family out? Because otherwise you will be dormant in my pocket.”

Oh. Now Mythra gets the picture he’s painting.

“You’re saying… kill me a couple of days before it’s time to make our escape—”

“Pass your core crystal to Galea, who can resonate with you when the time is right, yes,” Jade finishes. “Which brings us to four blades: one for each human who can’t fight. Those are very good odds.” And as an afterthought, perhaps to tide her over, he adds: “And then you don’t have to miss the fun.”

“That’s… true…” Mythra admits, though there’s still some kind of pit in her gut. She tries to focus on the braiding and not on that, but her voice is still kind of shaky when she continues: “I mean- That still requires- I still have to die, you know.”

“And I’m sorry about that.” And he _sounds_ sorry. The emotion bleed is too muddled, too bogged down by Citan’s usual apathy, to get a clear read.

“I’m sorry _you’ll_ have to do it,” Mythra shoots back, because, Architect. Wasn’t once enough?

“If you are okay with this plan, and we want to make it work, I don’t mind,” Jade insists, with a poor attempt at sounding reassuring that lands too close to apathetic. Ugh. “But it’s your call, not mine.”

Being there to help her family escape would be nice, Mythra agrees, but…

“I don’t know,” she says. It’s a great idea, minus the dying.

( _is having the resonance snap less painful than being killed?_

_she doesn’t know_

_but if she’s going to die anyway…_ )

“That’s fine,” Jade tells her. “You can think on it. It’s not like your parents are anywhere near done with—the twins, I think they’re calling them? Cheeky. Anyway, completion is probably still a month away, so you have time to think over your decision.”

“Right,” Mythra says, still not sure how she feels about it. She busies herself a little longer with Jade’s hair, but there’s only so long before that’s done, too. So. “Alright, you’re done,” she tells him. And, because he’s new to this: “You can move now.”

“Oh, excellent.” He turns a little to look at her, and Mythra moves so she can see him from the front. She was right. He _does_ look better when there’s still some hair left to frame his face. And while she’s admiring her handiwork, Jade blindsides her with: “Well, what do you think? Should I braid yours?”

Mythra splutters. “What—you _just_ said you didn’t want to.”

“I changed my mind.”

“Do you even know how to braid hair?”

“Is it hard?”

“I mean,” Mythra says, but she’s not entirely sure where arguing with him is going to go, and like. If he’s learning how to braid her hair, he’s not stressing himself out with paperwork or who knows what else. So. “You want to learn?”

“Sure.”

She can’t exactly say no to that.

\- - -

Final verdict: even for a first attempt, it’s pretty terrible. But, hey. It’s not like either of them are _keeping_ the braids for more than another hour or so, so what’s it matter?

\- - -

Hubert is well aware something is up with Mythra. Of course he hasn’t _told_ anyone, because the thought of selling another blade out makes him want to vomit. But for all the interactions he’s had with her, especially over these past few weeks, he’s become more and more certain.

Mythra remembers.

There’s no way she doesn’t. Hubert and Flynn keep getting assigned to escort her to the labs so that Galea can crosscheck Mythra’s code (a foreign concept to Hubert, frankly) with the code of the new blades Galea and the other scientists are making (the less Hubert thinks about that one the better; hasn’t this project killed enough blades?) and watching Mythra and Galea interact… Mythra remembers Galea. She may pretend she doesn’t, but you can pretend away memories. You cannot pretend away comfort, you cannot pretend away chemistry. Galea quips and Mythra laughs like she was expecting it. Mythra finishes Galea’s sentences. Mythra watches Galea in only the way that a blade watches their driver and…

Hubert has had enough of the charade.

He tells Flynn to go on without him, and Mythra gives him a funny look (ha!) but cannot ask what he wants with Galea unless she wants to play her hand. And Mythra’s smart enough to not do that. So she lets Flynn escort her out of the lab, and Hubert and Galea are left alone.

“What did you need?” Galea asks, pleasantly, as she cleans the room up. It’s a room adjunct to the rest of the labs, filled only with computer equipment and one workbench. Galea’s just gathering her notebook and things, shutting the computer down, but she moves with anticipation, watching Hubert more than anything else.

Hubert glances to double check the door is closed behind them, just in case. It is.

“I know Mythra remembers,” he tells Galea.

She stops moving and stares at him.

“I’m sorry?”

Hubert huffs and flicks his glasses back up his nose, annoyed.

“No use pretending. Honestly, Galea, have you seen the way she looks at you? Unless…” Hubert’s eyes narrow, confused. “…you weren’t _aware_?”

That can’t possibly be right. Even now, as Hubert takes in Galea’s bluster, it speaks of a woman caught in the act, not one who’s confused by what Hubert is insinuating.

“I’m.”

“I want to know how,” Hubert presses on, because he’s not going to get Galea to admit to it, and frankly he doesn’t need her to. That’s not what he’s here for. “Is it because she’s artificial? Or have you figured out the means for a blade to keep their memories and told no one about it?”

“…are you saying you’re interested, Hubert?” Galea asks, very carefully, her fingers still lingering on the computer console.

“Of course I am. What sane blade wouldn’t be! To keep my memories—” He cuts off before he gets any more heated. Tries to hold himself steady and unaffected. Fixes his glasses again.

“There’s a patch,” Galea says, her voice quiet, but serious, as she meets Hubert’s eyes. “There’s no real guarantee it will work, because we’ve only tried it once.”

“It worked for Mythra perfectly well,” Hubert counters. “That’s enough for me to try it.”

“It requires at least an hour to patch you,” Galea continues, very still. “Flynn will notice you go offline, and he will notice when the resonance pings him a second time to keep you stable. Will that be a problem?”

“Ugh, he’ll _worry_ about me,” Hubert grumbles, rolling his eyes. A driver as fussy as Flynn makes things difficult, sometimes.

“A problem?”

“No, just annoying.”

“Be glad he’ll be worried,” Galea says, tired.

“I know,” Hubert answers, something uncomfortable sitting in his core as he does. “I could definitely do worse, as far as drivers go. If he comes in asking after me, feel free to tell him.”

Galea’s eyebrows quirk upward, bemused. “You aren’t going to warn him yourself?”

“No,” Hubert insists.

“…alright,” Galea answers, at length. “Just please be aware, you have to keep this a secret. Citan doesn’t know we developed this. No one does. And if Citan finds out that the memory patch exists, he’ll surely put two and two together regarding Mythra, at which point…” Galea breaks off, swallowing thickly.

Hubert stares at her. He’s not sure if he’s surprised, exactly, because he’s watched Jade and Citan interact for years. He’s watched Citan and _Mythra_ interact for months. He’s watched _Jade and Mythra_ interact, for months. He can do the math, just as well. So he’s not surprised. But nothing could have prepared him for the pit that forms in his gut as he processes what that math adds up to.

“Understood,” he says, crisply. “I’ll keep quiet. So will Flynn.” When Galea still seems stuck after that, he flaps a hand at her. “Well, go on! What do you need me to do? There’s no sense making me stand around here!”

Galea shakes her head, breaking out of her trance. “Right,” she says. “Over here.”

She turns the computer back on.

\- - -

“Jade?” Mythra asks.

“Mm?”

“Have you slept?”

Jade looks up at her like he cannot even fathom how she came to that conclusion. Well, Jade, if you wanted to avoid your apparent sleep deprivation being noticed, you should have chosen to hang around someone who wasn’t Mythra, who has been bullying her parents in turn to put down their work to sleep for years. Not that Jade is dozing off, exactly, but he’s moving through the perpetual stack of paperwork on his desk at a much slower pace than he normally does, and he keeps… spacing out? Watching the door. Mythra gets if he’s on edge, she is too, but…

“Blades need less sleep than humans do, you know this,” Jade deflects, and if he wanted to convince her that he’s been sleeping, that was the wrong tactic.

“ _Jade_ ,” Mythra says from her perch on his bed, leaning her weight towards him, in the kind of disapproval that used to get Galea to listen.

Jade rolls his eyes. “I _have_ been sleeping,” he insists.

“Doesn’t look like it.”

“Well, maybe you need to get your eyes checked.”

“Wow.”

“I assure you, I’m fine.”

Mythra huffs and rolls her eyes. She doesn’t believe him, but she knows him well enough by now that she can tell she’s not gonna get any further with him. Maybe her judgement was wrong. Or maybe he just doesn’t want her prying. Whatever, Jade. Do what you like.

She slides off his bed, though, and drags her much smaller stack of paperwork with her. It’s probably a few minutes after she’s made herself comfortable, cross-legged and bent over her knees so she can fill out the paper set upon the wooden floor.

“Actually,” Jade says.

Mythra startles, then turns to look at him. He’s not quite looking at her; his expression muddled, his posture fixed with the kind of stillness that makes Mythra sick with anticipation, waiting for him to snap.

“I suppose,” Jade says, and it appears to be with some effort. “I am just on edge. We are so close, and yet I…” He trails off, scowling at the doorway, one hand still poised to write, the other somewhere in his lap.

However he intends to finish that sentence, Mythra doesn’t know, but she can extrapolate. She’s nervous, too. More importantly, though, Mythra has to read between the lines.

“You… having _trouble_ sleeping, then?” she asks, reassessing. Not being able to sleep and avoiding sleep are, after all, two different problems.

Jade finally moves, hand lifting from his lap to rub idly at the bridge of his nose. “Not for lack of trying on my part, believe me,” he tells her with a sharp, tired kind of smile. His eyes are still fixed on the door.

When does Jade ever let his guard down, Mythra wonders. When has he ever had the _luxury_?

When they’re alone, her mind answers, helpfully. Mythra breathes, slow.

“Well,” she says. “If you want to take a nap now, I ain’t gonna stop you. I’ll even stick around so I can field any, uh, anyone demanding your attention.” It will only be Citan, but.

“No,” Jade says, fixing his glasses from how he dislodged them. “I’m afraid naps and I don’t exactly get along.”

“I’ll stay tonight, then,” Mythra offers. “Don’t give me that look. One night of no sleep isn’t going to kill me and you know it. I’ll just sit and do paperwork and, you know…” She swallows, but it doesn’t really do anything about the knot in her throat. The less she thinks about the implications of what she’s being forced to offer so Jade feels safe enough to sleep, the better.

Jade considers her at wearying length, but: “So long as you promise to wake me if anything happens.”

“Oh yeah, for sure,” Mythra says, and only feels a _tiny_ bit bad about how she has no intention of doing so. Jade’s going to get a full eight hours of sleep unless it’s an actual emergency, damn it. What’s the point if he doesn’t?

\- - -

The night is pretty uneventful. Mythra does things other than paperwork, like read some of Jade’s books. She leaves the lights off, summons a small orb of her own ether to see by instead. She’s not even really tired. Boredom is her real adversary.

That is, until about 4 A.M.

The resonance sings with Citan’s proximity, at 4 A.M.

_Why the hell is Citan on his way over here, at 4 A.M.?_

Mythra does something kind of stupid, but she made Jade a promise, and she’s going to make good on that promise, and like hell is she going to wake him up. She drags his chair out from behind his desk and plops it in the center of the room, facing the door. She sits in it. She summons her sword for good measure, the tip of it resting in the wood, her hands folded on the pommel, her chin resting on her hands.

Did she _need_ her sword out to prove her point? No.

But if she’s holding it, Citan can’t summon it.

Besides, maybe Citan is walking by for some other reason.

Haha.

She can hope.

She’d be wrong, though.

The door opens. Surprise slides past Citan’s usual apathy, as he takes stock of Mythra, but then he laughs, lightly.

“Need something?” Mythra asks, because she’s not about to let him have the first word. She leans forward, the weight of her sword leaning with her, feet pressed flat to the ground so she can leap up at any second if she needs. The goal is casual, but deadly. It doesn’t seem to faze Citan.

His eyes flicker over to Jade, still asleep. The fact that Jade is _still_ asleep just proves how much he needed it, Mythra thinks.

“Are we playing this game, then, Mythra?” Citan asks.

“Yeah,” Mythra answers. “Guess so.”

Citan summons Jade’s spear.

Just like that. No fanfare. No hesitating. Just a flash of red and a sharpening of ice-cold ether. Mythra’s eyes dart towards Jade, costing her precious seconds, and Jade is still asleep. _Jade is still asleep._ Last Mythra was aware, blades needed to be consciously passing ether to their driver for their driver to summon a weapon? So what the _fuck_ —

She turns back to Citan. He hasn’t moved. Jade’s spear rests lazily in his fingertips, and for all intents and purposes, Citan doesn’t _look_ like he’s going to attack ( _Foresight certainly doesn’t ping her about it!_ ) but there’s something about that casual stance that Mythra knows speaks of danger, if only Citan has the inclination.

Adrenaline thuds in Mythra’s ears. Her lungs get stuck to the back of her core. She sits. She glares. She thinks.

She _could_ wake Jade. 2 on 1 is still good odds, and Jade has a shitton of non-spear related combat knowledge at his disposal. Mythra knows that. But this isn’t what they planned. If Citan dies here and their core crystals go missing—because Jade will keep walking with his and he will keep hers with him—then what does that mean for Galea? For Klaus? For Anna and Myyah?

_This isn’t her choice to make._

“There’s so many things I could say, Mythra,” Citan says, looking down at her over the rims of his too fucking tiny absolutely pointless glasses that piss her off so much. “But honestly, I grow tired of repeating myself. It’s a shame, though. Blades like you never last long.”

Terror drips down Mythra’s ribcage, makes a disgusting home in her belly, right next to her anger. Combined they feel like they will tear her open.

She wants to say something. She wants to say a million and one things. Is this it? It can’t be it. Her hands grip the hilt of her sword so tightly her knuckles hurt.

“The hell does that mean?” she ends up asking, instead of something _useful,_ which only further ruins her mood.

“It doesn’t matter,” Citan says. “It never does, in the end. You’ll forget, anyway. You all do.”

Before Mythra can quite decide _alright, that’s enough,_ and cleave the man in two anyway, Citan dismisses Jade’s spear. And, maybe she should still cleave him in two, but he’s giving her a superficially polite wave and making for the door. He smiles a smile that’s just enough like Jade’s Mythra gags on reflex, disgust popping in the back of her throat.

“Good night, Mythra!”

And then he’s gone.

\- - -

Jade sleeps til noon.

Mythra kills the hours by doing every single physical exercise she can think of that doesn’t require leaving the room.

It settles the terrible storm of adrenaline in her core, but only just.

\- - -

“You could have woken me sooner,” Jade says, disapproving, through the slightly-ajar bathroom door. He’s getting dressed and otherwise getting ready for the day. Mythra guesses she _could_ have just, like, left the room? But also no she absolutely couldn’t have.

“You looked cute, sleeping,” Mythra teases, to put off the rest of the conversation they’ll have to have.

“Mythra.”

“You didn’t tell me _when_ to wake you up! You didn’t tell me to wake you up at all!”

She leans against the armchair, her hip against it, her arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes are not on the bathroom door, but rather the door to the bedroom itself. People keep walking by—of course they do, given the time of day—but Mythra still can’t shake the bad adrenaline from her gut, the anticipation sitting on the back of her neck like a knife about to plunge.

“Besides,” Mythra continues, trying to kill her nervousness and send it out to sea. “The fact you slept so long is just proof that you needed it.”

Jade sighs like he doesn’t quite think that’s true. Mythra rolls her eyes.

“I’m assuming this means you had to tell _someone_ to leave me alone at least once, then,” Jade calls, untouched by Mythra’s stress. Citan’s apathy must be drowning it. “Oh, I dread to think of the rumors.”

Rumors? What could anyone possibly say about—

Wait, never mind, Mythra got it.

“Ew,” she says.

“Well, this is your fault, not mine. If you’d woken me up sooner, or left—”

“I wasn’t going to leave you!” Mythra spits, with much more fire than she means to. She drops her arms from her chest. Hisses. Crosses her arms again.

“And why not, exactly?”

Ugh. She can’t _not_ tell him.

“It’s just…”

“ _Mythra_ ,” Jade says, when she fumbles, clearly not having patience for this.

Mythra rubs her palms over her arms, still feeling sick.

“…Citan threatened me,” she admits.

The bathroom door yanks open. Mythra whips her head that way. Jade stands, hand still braced on the doorknob, fully dressed waist-down but his shirt only partially buttoned, his coat and gloves nowhere to be seen. Alarm rings in the emotion bleed like a gong. He stares at Mythra. He keeps staring.

Mythra can’t take it anymore.

“What the _hell_ was he doing in your room at 4 in the goddamn morning?” she asks, despairing, even though she knows that they both already know the answer to the question. “I was scared out of my mind!”

“You should have woken me,” Jade says, his tone dead in a weird kind of way that makes Mythra even _more_ stressed.

“I didn’t— the fact that you _slept through it_ —”

“You promised you’d wake me.”

“I didn’t have time—”

“What do you mean you didn’t have _time_ ,” Jade interjects, and it’s legitimately hard to tell if he’s furious or if he’s just despairing like she is. His eyes are narrowed behind his glasses. His tone is freezing. “The resonance link would have told you he was coming. And unless he threatened you the moment he stepped in the door you could have woken me _then_ —”

“I panicked!”

“What do you mean you panicked?” Jade demands, his voice still too neutral. The emotion bleed speaks of nothing other than the horror that writhes like a cornered animal beneath Citan’s apathy. “Tell me exactly what happened. I need to know everything.”

Mythra fidgets. The state of disarray Jade’s in—shirt still half-unbuttoned, his ether lines glowing stark and red against his skin—doesn’t even diminish the coldness of his gaze as he weighs her, demanding an answer with his posture and not just his words. It makes Mythra want to wilt and want to puke in equal measure. All of the bad adrenaline from before is running laps through her system, as if it only took a break before it got ready to go again. She hates this.

“I was just… I was reading, and you were sleeping,” Mythra begins, rubbing at her arms again. “And Citan—you know, the resonance link pinged and I. I didn’t _want_ to wake you. So I…” She swallows. She pulls her gaze away from Jade’s, face hot with her shame and her anger and all of her leftover fear. “I went and sat in the middle of your room so I’d be the first thing he saw, and I already had my sword summoned—”

Here, Jade heaves a great sigh that might have been a groan had it come from anyone else. When Mythra steals a look at him, he’s kneading his forehead with his hand. The other is still bracing his weight on the doorknob.

“Mythra,” he says, and if his tone was freezing before, it’s at absolute zero now. “That was insanely stupid and reckless…”

“I wanted to make a _point_.”

“He doesn’t need any more reason to kill us.”

“He doesn’t need a reason at all!”

Jade opens his mouth, but no, actually, Mythra doesn’t want to let that point drop.

“If he _needed_ a reason, he wouldn’t be waltzing over here at _4 in the morning_ to _murder us_!” Mythra spits—bile on her tongue, despair in her core. She knew Citan wanted her dead, but that knowledge has crystalized into something horrible that gnaws at her very existence. How terrible is it, to be a blade, when your _driver_ wants you dead? “Architect! Jade, we could have died! I should have- I should have just run him through right then, at least then this would be _over with_ —”

“Mythra, please, you’re being—”

“And, _fucking,_ did you know he could just _summon your spear_ while you’re _sleeping_?” Mythra continues, because it’s too much to hold in, anymore. “The _fuck_ is up with that! That’s not- He shouldn’t be able to just— Did you _know_?"

Jade blinks at her, the glacier on his face sliding away into a slow confusion.

“Did you _not_ know?!” Somehow, that’s worse.

“I… didn’t realize it was odd,” Jade admits, and actually, _that’s_ the worst possible thing he could have said.

“I’m?” Mythra says, momentarily at a loss for words. She reaches up and shoves hair out of her face just for something to fucking _do_ that isn’t think about the implication of this. “That’s- I mean I know we pass ether to our drivers subconsciously, sometimes, because of our instincts or whatever, but _normally_ we have to at least be _awake._ And to share our weapon—normally we have to do that _on purpose_!”

Jade’s expression doesn’t crack as much as slowly cave in on itself, his posture going more rigid for a moment. And then he fixes his glasses. And then he starts buttoning up the rest of his shirt.

“What else did Citan say?” Jade asks. “You said he threatened you…”

Mythra exhales. Rakes her hand through her hair again. Subject change? Fine, that’s fine. “I don’t remember, exactly,” she admits. “It wasn’t anything—He just summoned your spear and that was threat enough. I guess he wanted to make a point, too.”

“Hm,” Jade says, and then nothing more. He ducks back into the bathroom. Mythra slumps against the back of his chair, sliding halfway towards the ground. She waits in silence.

Jade emerges a few minutes later, fully dressed. He probably has a million errands to run, now, and Mythra should let him go, but.

She needs… something.

Something so she doesn’t feel so sick.

And based on the expression his face is making—or rather the complete lack of expression his face is making, she thinks maybe Jade needs something, too.

“Can I braid your hair?” she asks, quiet.

“I have to head out—”

“Yeah, I know.” She pushes herself back to her feet. “I have an idea.”

“ _You_ have to be at the labs,” Jade tells her, the kind of tone that he uses when he expects to be listened to.

“Just give me five minutes, okay?” Mythra persists. “Come on, sit. Even if it doesn’t work…”

“Fine.”

Five minutes later Mythra has woven a tiny braid behind Jade’s left ear that he can hide underneath the rest of his hair. It’s… she doesn’t know, exactly, but she’s pretty sure he can leave it in. If he wants.

“There,” she declares, her smile as bright as she can make it as she makes a show of examining him. Her hands still feel kind of shaky. “You can’t even see it.”

Jade doesn’t say anything. But he doesn’t make to take the braid out, either. Mythra’s core sings.

\- - -

A guard escorts Myyah to Citan’s office.

Anna sleeps through it. Galea and Klaus are hidden away in—their own rooms? Hidden in one together? Myyah doesn’t know. She’ll explain it when she gets back, if she has to. Hopefully she won’t have to. She didn’t last time.

Citan looks like he was waiting to see her. Or maybe he just wasn’t busy.

“Ah, Myyah,” he greets, lounging back in his chair. “Another progress report? You must have made some significant progress if you’re delivering in-person.”

“Our agreement,” Myyah says, instead of answering, as the door shuts behind her.

“What agreement?” Citan asks, and Myyah bites her tongue.

She breathes, very careful, and very slow, not wanting her anger to ruin this conversation. She doesn’t waste her time on deciding whether Citan actually forgot or just likes getting under people’s skins, either.

“I believe I’ve made enough progress to satisfy your conditions,” Myyah says, instead. “Which means Anna goes free.”

“Do you have a prototype?” Citan counters.

“You never said I needed one,” Myyah answers in kind, scowling at the man sitting before her. “I have a full sketch of the plans, though. I’m just waiting on confirmation that Klaus and Galea’s blades work. Once I have that, I can start on the Aegises.”

“How long until they’re finished?” Citan asks. “Klaus and Galea, I mean.”

“Soon,” Myyah says, then hastily corrects herself: “I mean, within a month or so, anyway. Relatively soon, all things considered, but longer than I think Anna has.” She lets her voice go grim. It isn’t hard. She hates the waiting game. “Which is why I’m here to collect on the promise you made me—”

“I said you needed a prototype.”

“You did not. I would remember.”

Myyah has a very, very good memory. She could recite what Citan said back to her when they made this deal word-for-word, though she doesn’t think he’ll actually appreciate it. Nor does she think it’ll change his mind. It’s very frustrating, working with him.

“I have everything but the final piece of information figured out, and I’m completely positive it will work, this time,” Myyah insists, into Citan’s infuriating silence. “That was what we agreed. Full plans. That’s what I have.”

Citan ignores her, swiveling idly back and forth in his chair by a few inches each direction. “You do realize Anna knows very sensitive information and I absolutely do not trust her to keep her mouth shut about it, don’t you?” he says. “I cannot exactly just let her go. What do you propose I do with her?”

“If you really want to keep your eyes on her, then transfer her to another department. So long as she is out of those labs, it doesn’t really matter.”

No, Anna won’t _like_ a different kind of house arrest, but it’ll be an improvement. Myyah has to believe that.

Besides, Jade said if Anna could just get shuffled to another department…

“Fine,” Citan allows, shrugging. “Anna can go free when Klaus and Galea’s prototypes are finished.”

“That’s _not_ what we—”

“I said Anna could go when your plans were complete, right?” Citan smiles. “Your plans aren’t complete until Klaus and Galea are finished. And if you really don’t think Anna can last until they are… Well, maybe you should tell them to hurry it up.”

Myyah bites her tongue and leaves his office.

( _Of course, from there she’s just escorted back to the labs, but still._ )

\- - -

“I can’t believe this is gonna be our last sleepover,” Mythra says.

“You can’t call them that,” Jade protests, though he’s not sure why he bothers. He pulls his chair away from his desk so he can sit—he _didn’t_ sleep in well past noon, so there’s no errands to run for a few hours, and only paperwork to poke at while Mythra hassles him.

“That’s what they are!” Mythra insists, and, she’s not _wrong._ But that doesn’t mean Jade has to agree with her.

“You should get some sleep, too,” Jade says, idly. It occurs to him that, if their timing is going to be what he thinks it is, she’ll be getting plenty of ‘sleep’ in her core crystal, but he needs to speak with Klaus and Galea first, see how close they are to moving forward with their plans. Mythra agreed that she’d rather die and resonate with Galea than be useless during the actual escape attempt, but that doesn’t mean she’s in a hurry to die, and neither is Jade, exactly, in a hurry to kill her. He wishes there was an option for blades to just veto resonance when they so pleased, but alas, the Architect made this horrible system instead.

“I’ll get sleep when you have to do errands! I’m not supposed to go over to the labs today, so…” she trails off, there, likely in part because she’s moved to mess with Jade’s hair. He tilts his head and holds the excess out of the way so she can redo the braid he’s had perpetually kept behind his left ear. She _could_ braid his hair another way, he supposes, but this he doesn’t have to take out.

Why, exactly, he’s kept it, he’s not sure he could articulate.

“Got any hot plans for once we’re out of here?” Mythra asks, her voice bright in the way that means she’s forcing at least some of the brightness.

“Not exactly,” Jade answers. He picks up his pen, though he’ll have to wait for Mythra to finish with his hair before he can do any writing. He can’t exactly see anything with how his neck is twisted right now. “Obviously, I’ve been more focused on getting us out of here to begin with.”

“Yeah, but we’ll be out in like a week, right?” Mythra counters. “You should probably start thinking about it.”

“And what are _your_ plans?” Jade asks, rather than answering.

“C’mon, don’t deflect.”

“Well?”

Mythra sighs. She’s finished with his braid so she shrugs, exaggerated, then plops herself on the ground to sit. “I figure I’ll stay with Galea, since she’ll be driving me,” she says.

Jade sends a look down at her.

“What! I’m allowed not to have a plan, especially since you don’t have one!” Mythra pouts, arms folded over her chest, but she doesn’t move from where she’s sitting, which means she’s not that mad. Before Jade can open his mouth to quip or even protest, Mythra says, quite suddenly: “You could always stay with us, I guess. I mean. Only if you want to.”

She isn’t looking at him. Jade blinks.

“Are you saying you’ll miss me?” he teases.

“Of course not,” Mythra says, but she’s lying.

Jade chuckles to himself, and Mythra grumbles, and… That’s that. Jade smiles, instead of considering the gaping hole that is his ability to conceptualize his future, away from here, away from Citan. He quite honestly has no idea what he’s going to do, but… Well, he’ll have all the money he’s been skimming off the top of Citan’s bank account for apparently lifetimes. Surely that will get him somewhere.

“How soon do you think they’ll be done?” Mythra asks. “Today?”

“Not sure. Does Foresight say anything?”

“You know I can’t see more than like a minute—” Mythra begins to protest, but Jade slides his foot over so he can press his ankle against her leg, using the physical contact as a conduit for an ether transfer. Mythra shivers and stops talking, and then a second or so later jolts her leg away from him, cutting the ether flow. “Fuck,” she swears, rubbing at her head. And then: “Still nothing useful. Saw myself fighting someone. Dunno how soon, but I hope it’s Citan.”

“Were you winning?”

“Definitely broke an arm.”

“Good.”

“Now stop hassling me and do your paperwork.”

“I believe _you’re_ the one hassling me—”

“Shut uppp.”

The morning continues like that, relaxed and carefree… Banter passed easily. Mythra laughing. Jade’s mind unburdened, his worries all nothing but a distant speck on the horizon for those few hours.

( _It was nice to forget about the danger. It was nice to put aside the pressure. It was nice to, just for a moment, sit confident in the fact that everything was going to end okay._ )

\- - -

Galea and Klaus are sitting in the labs’ kitchen, enjoying breakfast at what actually looks like a reasonable hour to the rest of the world. It’s so rare for them, lately, that Galea would wonder if Klaus was eating something more akin to his dinner had she not known he slept, seeing as she spent the night with him. Myyah and Anna are squirrelled away in one of the other rooms, as they always are.

“You think Myyah was up at 6 just for breakfast?” Klaus wonders, smiling as he nurses his coffee.

“Probably,” Galea responds. “She’s the epitome of punctuality.”

“I mean, maybe she’s onto something, early mornings aren’t so bad…”

“You know you like past-midnight work better.”

“You’re right. I got into R&D specifically because jobs like this let me decide my own damn schedule. Imagine working an 8 to 5—”

Galea laughs at the thought. “Oh, it’d kill you.”

“Exactly!”

They’re both in high spirits for several reasons, but the primary one is that when Jade swings by this afternoon for his usual status update, they’ll be able to tell him the good news. The Twins are almost ready. Oh, the reports they handed over to Citan and the committee said they’ll have a few more weeks of work left to do, but realistically the job could be done tonight. They’re just waiting on Jade’s opinion of the timeline they’re working with. Can they be out, tomorrow? Is Jade prepared for that?

Architect, Galea hopes so, but despite the bag packed in her room it doesn’t really feel real.

She sends a look at Klaus, her smile restless and hopeful all at once, and it makes him nearly choke on his coffee, but he looks just as excited as she is.

“We should probably get to work, so that when Jade gets here—”

But the rest of that sentence dies in Galea’s throat when she hears noises at the labs’ front door. Guards chattering, armor shifting. Jade’s as punctual as Myyah is, so it won’t be him unless it’s an emergency, in which case Galea doesn’t feel too bad about getting to her feet and turning to face the door properly, because this seems like bad news.

She’s right.

Citan steps into the labs, with a wave and some pleasantry that Galea doesn’t hear over her mouth demanding the words: “What are you doing here?”

Citan’s eyebrows climb upwards, taken aback in a way that’s clearly just for show. His mouth quirks with amusement. “My job, of course,” he answers.

“We just sent over progress reports,” Klaus protests.

“I wanted to see for myself,” Citan says, and heads deeper into the labs, towards where they keep their work.

Galea shares a hasty look with Klaus, her horror communicated silently. The core crystals. One of them—Galea forgets who—frankly it doesn’t matter who—left them on the desks last night instead of stashing them away somewhere, because they were distracted and how were they to suspect Citan would drop by for an inspection the next day, anyway? It was careless, yes, and Galea can already imagine Jade’s fury over the matter, but…

Klaus shakes his head, subtle. It’s too late to try and distract Citan. They’ll just have to convince him there’s more work to be done than it looks like.

“They aren’t done,” Galea says, anyway, as she moves to follow Citan. He’s already at her desk, picking up one of the dormant core crystals. They’re both gray and colorless, at the moment.

“They look done,” Citan says, and then hums, as he turns the core crystal over in his hands. “Mm, never mind.” He puts the core crystal down, touches the other one just briefly; this time Galea _thinks_ she senses the ether shift, but it’s hard to say. “Not quite. Close, though,” Citan comments. How exactly he can _tell that,_ Galea has no idea.

“There is still plenty of work to do,” Galea insists, as Klaus steps up behind her to join her. “Probably another week’s worth of it.”

Citan sends Galea a look like he doesn’t believe her at all.

“Having a physical core crystal means they’re in the final stages, doesn’t it? I think the work would probably take you… oh, twenty-four hours, maximum.” Here, Citan’s smile twists. “A pair of geniuses like you could probably get it done in a fraction of that time. Three hours?”

 _How did he know_ is the thought that pounds in Galea’s head as she wets her lips, trying to come up with an answer.

Klaus comes to her rescue. “The process is completely different from last time,” he insists, engaging the full of his haughtiness. What he’s saying is a load of hot bullshit, but if he can sell it, what does it matter. “The dual ether processing system requires much more fine-tuning, or we’ll just have two blades instead of a pair of siblings, let alone _twins._ ” He scoffs, which Citan returns with a leveled, unconvinced look. Klaus breaks enough to allow: “We can do it in twenty-four hours only if we don’t sleep. It’ll probably take closer to forty-eight.”

He’s haggling low, but all they need is Citan to leave, _right now,_ so that they can tell Jade what’s happened and escape tonight.

“I still say you can do it in three,” Citan says, which is true but how the hell does he know that. “Get to work. I’ll sit here and watch.”

Fuck.

“We can’t do this in three hours,” Galea protests.

“Well, then we’ll talk in three hours.” Citan pulls Galea’s desk chair away from her desk and plops himself in it. He’s moved it far enough he’s not _blocking_ anything on her desk but it’s still the biggest fuck-you Galea has probably ever seen. She bites her tongue against her fury.

“You’re really going to sit here that long?” Klaus asks.

“It is my job to oversee you,” Citan counters, regardless of the fact he has shirked that duty on Jade more often than he hasn’t. “But if you really don’t want to do it—well, they are so close to being done, I’m sure I could find someone else to put the finishing touches on for you, if you’d prefer?”

“And who would—” Klaus begins, but stops before he gets far, as he realizes what Galea has. They were able to cobble together an artificial blade based on Myyah’s research and nothing more. Any grad student in the same area of study could probably do the same, if they were so inclined. And any other scientist, given all of their research materials and the time to figure it out…

Galea grabs the core crystals just so Citan can’t. She pings them—and gets nothing, because they aren’t done, and Galea can’t decide if Citan was just shitting her or not on his apparent ability to tell how close they are to completion. He is a more experienced driver than her, but even still, what has he done? Resonated with more than a dozen blades? It seems ludicrous.

“Oh good, so you’ll work, then?” Citan asks.

( _Jade’s voice, insisting, “Then you’re more use to them dead.”_

_Citan holding Jade’s spear to Anna’s throat._

Galea doesn’t really see how she has a choice in the matter, once again, and it infuriates her.)

She tosses one of the core crystals to Klaus rather than dignify Citan with a response.

“You’re an asshole, you know that?” Klaus says, gaze held with Citan.

“I’m only doing my job,” he replies. “You signed your contracts. We provided funds, you promised results. I’m just here to collect before you can do something stupid like run away with Tethe’allan property—ah, but you wouldn’t do that, would you?”

( _The thought of Mythra’s sword in Citan’s hand, turned against her, is all that keeps Galea from moving to strangle him._ )

“Choke on your pride and die, thanks,” Klaus says, and then moves to his own desk to work.

Citan just laughs and makes himself comfortable.

\- - -

They work.

Jade isn’t supposed to stop by for another five, six hours.

With Citan demanding to check the core crystals every thirty minutes—and, somehow able to tell just from pinging them whether or not they’ve made any progress—there’s really only much stalling they can do, and there is simply not enough work left, besides.

Sabotage would be the only way out of this, but the thought makes Galea sick.

Myyah and Anna stay in their rooms.

The twins are complete in just short of three hours.

\- - -

Galea hesitates before she hands the core crystal she was in charge of over to Citan. It glows warm and purple, clasped between her fingers, and it—it _pings_ her, ether searching for a resonance candidate, all she’d have to do is ping back, but…

( _a flash of red and it didn’t matter how far across base Jade was, his spear sat solid in Citan’s hand nonetheless_ )

It would surely be her death, and if not hers, then her child’s.

( _blade skill is mostly procedural memory, after all,_

 _there’s only so much combat knowledge you can program_ )

Still.

“Isn’t this theft?” she finds herself asking, just to speak, just to _protest_. “I’m pretty sure—”

“Everything you make is property of the Tethe’allan military,” Citan says. “You read your contracts, right? You should know this.”

Galea’s stomach feels like dread. Her eyes burn with fury. But there’s nothing she can do. She swallows her tears, she bites her tongue, she clutches her shirt with her free hand just so she won’t be tempted to drive her fist into Citan’s face once she’s handed the core crystal over. After all, they aren’t alone, anymore. Citan’s gathered two soldiers, one to drive each twin. Both soldiers are nondescript, relatively generic—probably the first two people Citan could find. Galea’s been locked in the labs so long she doesn’t remember any names, any faces.

Klaus hands over their other child, then moves to stand by Galea. He’s trembling.

“No need to look so upset. It’s not like it’s you have to say goodbye right _now_ ,” Citan tells them, cheerfully. “You still have plenty of tests to run, right? To make sure that dual ether processing system is working as intended. Go on ahead.” The last bit he directs at the soldiers.

The twins form a half second apart from each other, in surges of ether and flashes of light, green and purple.

The blade who forms from the green core crystal is a woman—physically in that early twenties area that Mythra sits, her face about the same shape and her eyes the same gold. Her hair is red that borders on pink, as fluffy as Klaus’, cut to about the same length; just above her shoulders. That would be Pyra.

And—“ _Ah,_ ” Galea finds herself saying, with a knot of anxiety in her throat because the name they finally picked out for the other twin was a name meant for another girl, and not—

Not the giant bulking tree of a man that forms from the purple core crystal. He must be nearly seven feet tall, which isn’t _unheard_ of, for blades, but he stands like he’s conscious of his height, and he blinks silver eyes, confused. His black hair is short and sticks up nearly straight. His forehead creases in what looks to be a resting scowl. Galea doesn’t even think.

“Tests,” she says in excuse, as her mind screams _name._ She grabs her son by the hand and drags him off to the workroom where she’s been running “tests” on Mythra for months. There _are_ actual tests that she needs to run, but mostly she wants her son alone to talk to, so she tells his driver to wait and closes the door.

“The hell is going on,” her son demands, his tone landing somewhere more on the accusatory side of the confusion scale.

“I’m… not sure how much I can explain,” Galea admits, because probably the less her son knows about what exactly is going on right now the better, though he probably can deduce it. Still, it ranks lower on the list of things she needs to address. “Listen, about your name—”

“I’m not a fan.”

Galea swallows. “I thought so.” Her son crosses his arms, uncomfortable. Galea stares up at him and ventures, “You should have a list?” because he and Pyra both do, and Architect Galea hopes that Klaus is making sure Pyra knows if she doesn’t like her name she can pick a new one, too.

“They all suck.”

“That’s fair.”

All the names were from a handful that Klaus picked from a long dead language, and they aren’t _bad,_ but they’re all a little pretentious. They were supposed to have the time to come up with something better. They were supposed to—

“Well?” her son asks, looking at her expectantly.

“It’s your name,” Galea tells him. “You get to pick.”

He makes a face like that’s the last thing he wants to do.

Galea laughs, a little broken.

“Ideally,” she says, fighting to keep her voice even, “we’d have time to- to workshop it with you. To help you come up with something. But we don’t. We don’t have that time—”

Her despair catches up to her, grabs her by the chest and yanks her down. She flops into the chair by the computer, buries her face in her hands. Tears burn hot against her palms. She bites her tongue so she doesn’t scream like she very much wants to, but her shoulders still shake with the effort of all the air in her lungs heaving in distress.

“Is… something wrong?” her son asks, sounding immensely lost.

“It,” Galea says. She swallows. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.” She can’t even make herself look at him. “But I’m so- I’m so sorry. You deserved so much better from me than—than—”

“Uh.”

Galea squeezes her face. She breathes long and deep, trying to get a hold of herself. She can fall apart _later_ , this isn’t the—

Someone knocks on the door.

— _time._

Galea scrubs her eyes and stands up, gesturing for her son to sit on the worktable because that’s faster. He does without question. She fumblingly gets wires attached to his core crystal to take readings as the door opens.

“Just checking,” Citan says, when Galea throws a glance at him. He stands there, watching carefully as she takes her son through preliminary testing, and then finally decides he’s bored. “Watch her, this time,” he tells the soldier—her son’s driver—and then he leaves.

Galea wonders if she should still try and think of a name for her son, but her mind is blank of ideas and this isn’t exactly the best environment for brainstorming.

He doesn’t ask again, anyway. Hopefully he’s thinking about it. Hopefully he’ll be able to decide something on his own.

( _Hopefully, someday, he’ll forgive her._ )

\- - -

Preliminary testing finished with, Galea and her son and her son’s driver join Klaus and Pyra—does she even want to be called Pyra? Galea will never know!—along with Pyra’s driver and Fucking Citan where they can get both blades hooked up to the computers to test how well the two of them _can_ process ether together, if the reason for their creation actually worked how it was meant to. From what the preliminaries were showing, Galea’s fairly certain it does. Still, they need to be absolutely sure, so here they are.

And just when Galea thinks they can go ahead and be done with this charade, Citan says:

“Wait, shouldn’t Myyah be here for the final tests?”

What.

Well, alright. It makes sense, actually, if Galea thinks about it, because it’s not like she and Klaus are the only two scientists Citan hired for this project, but…

“I mean, she did tell me that this was the final piece she needed before her Aegis plans were complete,” Citan continues.

“She _told you_ what?” Klaus demands, his attention snapping up from his computer.

“Oh?” Citan’s face is the perfect picture of innocence, if Galea didn’t know the bastard hiding underneath it, anyway. “Do you mean—she didn’t mention? She’s been in contact with me this whole time.”

Galea’s stomach drops down to her toes. She forgets how to be angry. There’s nothing inside her other than the gaping horror of betrayal.

Klaus slams himself away from his desk and down the hall. There’s some hushed almost-shouts, Myyah indignantly shouting Klaus’ name, and then Klaus emerges from the room he entered dragging Myyah by the arm behind him. He hasn’t even fully returned to the room before he’s spitting at her: “What does he _mean_ you’ve been in contact with him! Since when!”

“I just—”

“ _Myyah._ ”

“I thought if I could finish my schematics, I could make a deal—”

“ _You_ _sold us out!_ ”

“—to get _Anna_ out of here!” Myyah yanks away from Klaus, here, scowling, her back perfectly straight. “If she stays locked up much longer she’s going to die—”

“We already had! Plans!” Klaus protests.

Galea watches, words all dead in her mouth. Her eyes burn.

“I wanted insurance,” Myyah insists.

“ _Insurance?!_ ”

“A second plan, a backup plan, just in case Jade’s plan didn’t—”

She cuts off, there, and goes silent, eyes squeezed shut. Maybe they could have salvaged it. Maybe if Klaus had shouted over her. Maybe if Galea could find words to speak at all. But in the end, it doesn’t matter.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Citan says into their collective silence. “I already knew Jade was involved in this. He thinks he can slip paperwork under my nose, but I really _do_ look at it. Especially considering it’s about the time when—”

He interrupts himself, smiles, shakes his head.

“Well, no need to concern yourselves with that,” Citan says, in a way that makes Galea extremely concerned about it, but Klaus—

“Well! Isn’t that just great! We’re really stuck here now, aren’t we!?” he spits, all fury. “I hope you’re happy, Myyah. We’re never going to get out. _Anna’s_ never going to get out!”

“Citan promised,” Myyah insists.

Klaus laughs, furious. “Citan promised!!” he repeats, incredulous of the notion.

“I did promise,” Citan says, but Klaus isn’t listening.

“Sure, Myyah,” he continues, bright and low, almost unrecognizable in his fury. “You looked after yourself, you looked after Anna, _what does that make Galea and I, to you?_ I suppose we’re nothing more than chopped liver—”

“That’s not,” Myyah begins.

“And what about our _kids_?” Klaus continues, gesturing with his arm over to where Pyra and her brother stand, as near to each other as they can be right now while also hooked up to two separate computers, whispering low to themselves. “We won’t see them after today. We won’t see them ever again!”

“Klaus, please.”

“Don’t you dare interrupt me. Don’t you dare think I care about your excuses—”

“Alright, Klaus,” Citan interrupts, this time, and continues speaking right over Klaus’ protests. “Enough of your stalling. You have tests to run, and I have other things to do today.”

Klaus’ fury does not abate as much as it just readjusts itself. Galea supposes _she_ very well could have run the tests herself, but she seems stuck to the floor, head heavy, stomach tied in knots. Klaus snaps his attention away from Myyah and turns to his computer, hunching over the readings as he points to their son, hooked up to Galea’s computer.

“Start channeling ether to your driver,” he commands. “As much as you dare.”

It lasts about ten seconds. Then Klaus stands up.

“Good, go ahead and stop,” he says, and moves to Galea’s computer. “Pyra, your turn, same orders,” he says over his shoulder, and Galea wonders if it stings him as much as her that their son does not have a name to be called by.

The ten seconds seem to be up faster, this time, or maybe Klaus didn’t even wait that long.

“Good, fine,” Klaus declares, straightening, his words all hard edges. “It works. They draw ether from each other as well as themselves, allowing them to output more than the average blade.” There’s still a storm on his shoulders. Anger in the snap of his movements. He pulls away from the computers, and Galea steps up only because it feels worse to leave their children to remove the wires from their core crystals on their own. But by the time she’s disconnected Pyra, their son has already yanked himself free with a hiss.

Galea takes this moment to study Pyra, not sure what she wants to take in, not sure what she hopes to see on Pyra’s face. But she sees Pyra study her in return, hungrily, as if memorizing every detail she can. It’s something.

“Good work!” Citan says, genially, fixing them all with a smile that would be sweet if the man not so sour. Galea’s insides curdle. “Go ahead and catch your ride to—wherever they’re sending you,” he tells the soldiers. “Wouldn’t want to keep your transport waiting.”

“What,” Galea finds herself saying, a numb grasp for understanding.

“You didn’t think they’d be staying on base, did you?” Citan replies. “We have more than enough manpower here. Tethe’alla will send them where they’re needed.”

Galea watches her children hesitate only briefly, before they each give into the siren song of following their drivers. Pyra pauses just long enough to offer a “Goodbye,” soft and somewhat sad, and then she’s gone. Galea’s son doesn’t even say anything at all.

“Myyah,” Citan says. “With me.”

Myyah startles, turning to him. She’s been staring at Klaus’ back up until this moment.

“But—”

“Someone will return to collect your things,” Citan assures her. “Congratulations on the promotion, by the way.”

“This isn’t—” Myyah tries.

“You’re the only one who seems at all interested in completing the work we hired you for,” Citan continues. “Which means you get better accommodations. Come on. I’m sure you’ll be happy to be out of these labs. I know I would be.”

Myyah hesitates. “Galea,” she says.

Galea just slumps down to sit in Klaus’ desk chair. She doesn’t say anything.

“ _Klaus_ …” Myyah tries.

“Just get out of here, Myyah.”

And so Myyah leaves, too.

\- - -

“You’re still kind of shit at this,” Mythra says, good-natured, as Jade tries again to braid her hair.

He sighs, though he thinks her judgement fair. “You literally have more hair than I know what to do with,” he tells her, pretending to huff, though he allows himself a smile precisely because Mythra can’t see him do it. She’s sitting on the floor again, and he’s turned his chair enough away from his desk to fuss with her hair. “Anyway, after this I’ll go check on your parents. I’ve probably put it off long enough, but…”

“Eh, I know what Klaus’ sleep schedule is like. Unless Galea bullied him awake, he probably just got up. So you’ve got plenty of— _"_ Mythra goes very still in the way she only does when Foresight is pinging her with something. “ _Shit_ ,” she swears, panic flooding the emotion bleed as she jolts to her feet. She swings her attention to the door just as the resonance hums with Citan’s presence.

The door pushes open with no knock, no nothing. Citan grins at the both of them, looking way too pleased for him to be bearing good news.

“Sir?” Jade asks.

“So it turns out they were lying about how far along they were in completion of their blades,” Citan answers, clapping his hands together once. “Don’t worry—I don’t blame _you_ for the fact they falsified their paperwork. But we’re one step closer to having an Aegis, now, and the other blades are finished and in military rotation, where they should be. I suspect they and their drivers are already on the transport out of here by now.” His eyes gleam with something that makes Jade’s ether burn, or maybe that’s just Mythra’s rage hitting in his core and lighting flares.

Jade shoots out a hand to grab her by the elbow, yanking her back. Ether boils in her hand, harsh and deadly. Citan smirks.

“Now get back to work,” Citan says, and then he exits, leaving the door wide open.

“Augh!” Mythra screams, throwing the ether she gathered at the ground. It scorches the floorboards, sends up sparks. “Fuck you! You should have let me—”

“It would get us out, but then what of your family?” Jade asks, trying to calculate the pieces they have left, trying to comprehend the ashes of his plans as they turn to smoke before him. “We can’t just—”

“If you’d stop _sitting around on your ass_ we wouldn’t still _be here!_ ”

“I want him dead as much as you do.”

“ _Clearly_ you don’t!”

“Mythra—”

“Ugh!” She throws her hands up in the air, back to Jade. “Whatever. I’m gonna go- slaughter some training dummies. Maybe Hubert will want to spar. I don’t know.”

She storms out of the room.

Jade sits and he tries to figure out where, exactly, he went wrong.

\- - -

Citan loiters around in the halls for longer than he normally would, paying close attention to where the resonance link tells him his blades currently are. In extremely good news, Jade and Mythra split up much faster than he anticipated they might. And Mythra seems to be heading towards…

Oh.

That’ll make things easy.

\- - -

Mythra rakes her fingers through her hair to get rid of the half-finished braid as she moves at a hell-bent pace through the maze of a military base she lives in. The first place she stops, actually, is Citan’s office, because she’s very stupid and she’s _very_ angry. He’s not there, though, which is weird, but. Fine. Probably for the best. Jade would hate her forever if she actually killed their driver, especially since she isn’t sure how she’d get Citan to Jade in time for _him_ to not die, but.

_Architect._

She careens out of his office and heads back down the hallways out towards the arena, shouting “watch it!” and “fuck you!” at any person who bumps into her. Her siblings are gone and she never even got to meet them. She never even got to _see_ them! And now she probably never will! She hates this!

She summons her sword and slams it against the doorway of the shed where the training dummies and everything else is kept, just for _some_ kind of release to her anger. It settles precisely nothing in her core. Maybe if she did it twenty or thirty more times. But that’s what the dummies are for, and no one can get mad at her for destroying _those._

“Fuck this, fuck this, fuck this,” she grumbles to herself, dragging one of the dummies out and tossing it one armed into the middle of the dusty little arena, dragging her sword behind her in the dirt. “How the hell did he even find out! How the hell— _ugh!_ ” She pretends the dummy is Citan and shoves her sword through its chest a few times, and then tosses the damn thing into the air and slams it with the flat of her sword so it goes flying across the arena. Retrieving it and sending it flying the opposite direction a few times doesn’t exactly _settle_ her core, but it’s a weird kind of rhythm that’s easy to get lost to, all other thoughts kind of just numbing out.

So when someone coughs politely to get her attention she is _extremely_ surprised.

And then subsequently furious when she realizes it’s Citan.

“The hell do _you_ want?!” Mythra spits, storming across the arena to get closer to him. Foresight pings her with something she’s too mad to pay attention to.

“Well, you seemed upset, so I thought I’d come see if I could do anything to help,” Citan says, and were Mythra not so mad right now she’d probably laugh herself silly at the notion Citan _cares_ about her wellbeing. Citan closes the distance between them, smiling widely. “What do you say to a friendly spar, hmm? Work out some of that anger.”

Uh, gross? That’s how she feels about it. “Pass,” Mythra answers.

Citan summons Jade’s spear.

“Oh, sorry,” he says. “That wasn’t a question.”

Mythra goes cold.

This… can’t be it, right? This can’t be it. Mythra’s well aware that Citan would kill her without a second thought, but she figured like… he’d try and do it in her sleep, or something. Or while she was distracted. There’s no way he can _seriously_ think he’s going to manage to strike her down after _challenging_ her to a battle. Since when the hell does he fight? He just sits on his ass all day.

Mythra laughs, uneasy, but fairly confident. Fine, whatever. They can spar!

“Just don’t get mad when I wipe the floor with your ass,” she tells him, readying her sword. Going easy enough on him she doesn’t _actually_ kill him is going to be difficult, considering how very much she wants to see him dead, but surely she can get away with maiming him? Hell, maybe that’s his plan. A blade who hurts their driver that badly is a liability, or whatever. Well. His fault for being a shitty driver.

“Oh, I won’t need to worry about that,” Citan answers, confident for a man who’s about to get his ass wiped across the floor. He doesn’t even bother taking a ready stance.

He just _moves_.

It’s almost faster than Mythra can clock. If it weren’t for Foresight’s furious ping, he would have run her right through. She just barely dodges left, gets her sword in position so the spear slides across it.

Her ether hiccups. Her lungs constrict. Her eyes widen as Citan makes another move.

Feint left, lunge right. Again, Mythra’s nearly too slow. He dodges her retaliating strike like it’s nothing, lunges again—Oh shit. Oh _shit_. All of Mythra’s expectations get caught on that spear and die a quick death.

Citan knows his way around that spear very, _very_ intimately.

Holding back is just going to get her killed.

_Oh Architect she’s going to get killed._

“Problem?” Citan calls.

“Absolutely not,” Mythra answers, and deliberately does not think about how she’s died on this spear once before already. It’s fine. It’s fine. She’s not actually going to die here. Citan forced their hand, Jade will have to—he’ll have to agree. They end this here.

Jade just has to _get here,_ first.

Mythra tugs as hard as she can on the resonance link, sending her panic and everything else wildly in Jade’s direction so that he can come running. She just has to stall. She can stall.

So, some notes: she still has frankly no idea how exactly Citan fights, but she knows how Jade fights. That’s Jade’s spear. That’s Jade’s driver. And even more than that—a guy holding a spear is going to fight like a guy holding a spear, full stop. Which means Mythra has two options here, and one of them is going to be slightly better for stalling.

She jumps backwards to give herself some space, hopping twice for distance and so Citan can’t bury that spear in her gut when she retreats.

Fuck. _Fuck._ She’s got this.

“How often do you do this?” Mythra asks, her sword gripped with both hands in front of her. She moves to circle, as is standard spar fare, but Citan doesn’t move to mirror her. Fuck.

“Do what?” Citan asks in return.

“Kill your blades,” Mythra spits, the words knives that cut up her tongue, make ether burn in the back of her throat. Her sword flares bright with her anger.

“Oh!” Citan chuckles. “You’re quick on the uptake.”

He takes a swing at Mythra, because—she realizes—she got too close to slipping past him towards the exit. Shit, shit. There goes that. Mythra puts distance between them again.

“You haven’t exactly been subtle.”

“Neither have you.”

It almost makes Mythra trip.

“What?”

“Really, I should thank you,” Citan says, his smile genuine enough it makes wires in Mythra’s brain fire in ways they really shouldn’t for the man who’s trying to murder her. “I’m not sure I could have pulled today off if you hadn’t distracted Jade. You make him sloppy. Reckless. It makes my life easier.”

Rage rears its head in Mythra’s core. “Then why—”

“You’ve overstayed your welcome.”

The emptiness that Citan always pours into the emotion bleed takes Mythra’s rage and grabs it by the throat, strangles it, slams it back down. Mythra tries not to choke on it, but she definitely staggers, her body rebelling against the sensation of how quickly her rage is turned sour, nearly snuffed out.

“You—!”

“Stop stalling for Jade, I don’t want to have to kill him today.”

Rage finds kindle, burns again. Mythra digs her foot into the dirt to keep herself steady, sliding so her center of gravity is low—better than being reduced to her knees entirely.

“So you _would_ kill him!”

Citan has the audacity to _shrug_. “If I have to,” he says, and it’s- it’s like Galea, lamenting the coffee maker they had to replace. It’s the exact same tone, the exact same indifference. “But I was hoping I could make him last until the project was finished—your death should send him a pretty clear message.”

Mythra sees red, feels red, fills to the brim with red.

“Like hell I’m dying!” she shouts.

“Cute that you think you get to make that decision.”

And Citan lunges for her again.

Mythra leaps forward.

They clash in the middle, Mythra’s burning sword slammed against a block that defies how hastily Citan made it. His stance is steady and the spear—well, it’s a blade weapon, so Mythra really has no hope of slicing the damn thing in half no matter how much weight she puts on her sword. She puts her weight on it, anyway. He needs range, so she’s not going to fucking give him range.

She should have expected the knee to the stomach, though.

Stagger back, spear aimed at her throat, sword up to block—that spear, that _fucking_ spear. She loathes it and she hates that she loathes it, hates that she remembers so cleanly what it feels like when it’s buried in her stomach, hates that just the sight of it makes her mind light itself on fire, because it’s _Jade’s,_ and she wants more than anything to consider Jade _safe—_

She throws light right into Citan’s eyes with her free hand; it doesn’t stop him but it slows him. She leaps and she crashes her weight into her would-be murderer with all she has, her blows backed by arrows of light that bounce off an ether shield.

Fuck it. Fuck it! He wants her dead, which means he chose to die. He just has to live long enough for Jade to get here. _Maiming is allowed._

She goes for his arms, because if he doesn’t fucking have those then he’s gonna have a hard time hurting her. Unfortunately Citan is very quick— _seriously since WHEN did he learn to fight like this—_ and has his defenses reinforced with a shield of solid ether that acts like armor. She lands very few blows, and all the blows she does land glance right off. Dammit, _dammit,_ think, Mythra—

Foresight pings. Mythra dodges. Citan pulls at her ether to cancel her own shield right as the spear connects—a glancing blow, gouging the skin at her hip.

It’ll heal if given a few minutes, but she doesn’t have minutes, here. She is buying her life second by second and if Jade doesn’t get here soon—

She grabs the spear and yanks Citan towards her, by his wrist, by his elbow, letting her sword vanish from her hands because she needs both of them for this. She meets Citan’s eyes, through those stupid _stupid_ tiny glasses of his, and says: “Fuck you.”

And then she snaps his arm in half.

Actually, she snaps it several more times than just _in half._ Ether shields absorb some force, but not nearly enough to save him. There’s the delightful crunch of snapping bones beneath Mythra’s fingers, blade strength rendering Citan’s arm like a twig. Citan hisses in pain—only a hiss—as Mythra kicks his legs out from under him and drops him to his knees, shoves him so he falls on the arm she just fucked the hell up.

She summons her sword again and rests it on his neck.

She is rage incarnate. Justice drips off her sword. She looks at Citan beneath her, bound to die in minutes, and feels sweet satisfaction.

“You think this is how Jade felt every time he died?” Mythra asks, bright and cold.

Citan laughs to himself.

“Again,” he says, “it’s cute that you think you’re in charge here.”

He pushes himself upright. He—He _pushes_ himself up, _using his fucked up arm_ as leverage—He. He gets to his knees.

Alarm rings in Mythra’s core.

Jade’s spear materializes in Citan’s left hand _,_ and—her sword doesn’t even touch him. There’s a solid inch of Jade’s ether protecting his neck ( _Mythra hates him all the more for it, hates that he steals Jade’s ether for this, for_ anything), so he gets up like it’s nothing. He gets up, like it’s _nothing,_ like his arm is _meant_ to bend like that, like it _doesn’t even hurt_ —

Mythra pulls back and swings—Jade has to be here any second and surely the heart doesn’t have to be _fresh—_

But—

Citan ducks, stabs, catches Mythra in the thigh. She screeches, the sound becoming words—“ _not fair it’s not fair!_ ” she screams. “ _I won!_ ”

“You really didn’t.”

Bullshit _bullshit BULLSHIT—_ how is he still fighting so well with one arm, with his offhand, how is he _not even slowed down._ Shouldn’t he be in shock? Shouldn’t he—

Mythra’s thoughts spin faster than she can keep up with, body still moving but significantly slowed by how each step sets pain receptors on fire thanks to her fucked up thigh. Citan gets her in the shoulder— _Architect,_ why does her shield keep failing? She—

_Why is she channeling him ether?!_

She cuts that flow off, but it doesn’t change how much ether she’s bleeding, how each step and each swing burns with pain, how Citan won’t let her get close enough to the arm she fucked up so she can tip the scales back in her favor.

Dread wraps around her throat. Her mind keeps skipping steps, her body a second slower than the rest of her, reaction times all fucked again—Is it actually freezing cold, or is that just her? Everywhere she bleeds from feels like ice. Citan bears down on her with that spear—that _fucking spear_ —and—

Mustering all she has to keep blocking blows with her sword, Mythra throws her attention into Foresight for an answer. It stutters and groans in her mind, calculating and calculating until—

( _She has two options. They both end in her dead._ )

Her sword skims off the spear. She readjusts, aims to thrust.

( _It’s him or her._

 _Right now._ )

Citan pulls his arm back.

( _And if he dies, **so does Jade.** )_

Tears sting in Mythra’s eyes.

“Fuck—”

\- - -

Jade staggers mid-run. His ether rebounds with the shock of someone else’s death thrown against it. The resonance tying him to Mythra through Citan snaps, all of her fury and fear suddenly gone. Not drowned—simply nonexistent.

She’s gone.

He slumps, or hits the wall, somehow, he isn’t sure. His chest feels unbearably heavy. All of the ether Citan borrowed comes back to him in a rush, but it does nothing to fill the black hole that has opened in his stomach.

_Mythra’s gone._

Rage, despair, rage, despair, rage, despair—he is a tipping scale. He is in the middle of a spinning storm. He does not know how he’s supposed to _breathe._ He wants Citan dead. He wants Mythra back. He wants to vomit until the memory of Mythra dying on his spear unwrites itself from his ether.

He feels stuck, again. All of his movement rendered to a complete halt. He thought he’d been building plans out of bricks, but he had only ever been using cards, and they collapsed just as cards do, remnants scattered on the floor around him.

_Citan murdered Mythra._

He is furious. He is unmoored. Ether tugs itself out of his system again, the tune of Citan summoning his spear, ringing in Jade’s ears loud enough that he looks up—

While his thoughts were spinning, his feet carried him to his driver’s location.

“Ah, Jade,” Citan says by way of greeting. He holds Jade’s spear at his side, casual. A promise, but not a threat.

In his other hand he holds—a core crystal— _Mythra’s_ core crystal—

Someone clears their throat, and the cloud of rage in Jade’s mind parts enough that he properly takes stock of the fact Hubert stands next to Citan. A faint thread of ether still passes between Hubert and Citan—healing, Jade suspects. And then he processes that his spear sits in Citan’s _left_ hand, and Mythra is gripped in Citan’s _right,_ the arm of which is held close to his body at an angle. Hubert still has his fingers wrapped around said arm, but as he meets eyes with Jade, the flow of ether cuts off.

“Problem, Hubert?” Citan asks, sending him a glance.

“I think that’s all I can do for you right now,” Hubert answers, curt.

“Surely it isn’t.”

“What happened?” Jade’s mouth says, interrupting. Citan’s attention swings back to him.

“Training accident, unfortunately,” Citan explains, with a smile. That fucking liar.

Jade seethes, every inch of him cold. Hubert tries desperately to meet his gaze, but Jade dare not break eye-contact with his driver.

“I suspect it’ll be nice to work without distractions, though,” Citan continues. “She _was_ awfully noisy.”

Red snaps across Jade’s synapses, obscuring thought, briefly, obscuring everything but his rage—Had Citan not been holding his spear, that might have been it. Jade might have stepped forward, buried it in Citan’s stomach, and called the work good.

But Citan _is_ still holding Jade’s spear.

And Jade has never, ever been—reckless. He’s never been _brave._ There are too many unknown variables here, and even if he could craft himself a spear of ice to cut Citan open with… He does not actually know if he would win. How many times has he got in a fight with Citan and lost, before? He has three deaths behind him. Those odds do not exactly evoke confidence.

( _A deep, near-forgotten part of Jade knows that murder could be as simple as freezing the blood in Citan’s veins solid and watching him rupture—but that would destroy the heart, wouldn’t it? And then what would he do?_ )

Instead, Jade makes a desperate gamble, and holds out his hand.

He hopes the smile on his face is as fixed as he intends it to be.

“If you want to give me her core crystal, I can turn it in to military rotation for you,” Jade says.

Citan gives him a Look. “I think not.” And—Jade must react, _somehow,_ because then Citan scoffs. “Come on, Jade, I’m not stupid,” he says.

And then he walks away.

Jade lets out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

( _He is still furious, he does not even know how to process his grief, but at least_

_At least he is still alive_

_For how much longer, he doesn’t know, but—_ )

Hubert moves.

Jade doesn’t see it as much as feel it. There is a burst of ether, and Jade stops thinking. Instincts take over.

Hubert has summoned his weapon—a gun—and leveled it at Citan’s head. Jade lunges, grabs Hubert’s arm so the shot flies wide.

“Jade—!” Hubert says, and Jade doesn’t respond, can’t respond. He does not know what face he is making. He barely processes the horror-annoyance that flashes across Hubert’s features. His brain doesn’t turn back on until the resonance sings in a way that suggests Citan is out of sight, out of range.

He lets Hubert go.

“You should have let me—” Hubert says, arm gesturing wildly. “He _killed_ Mythra! He’ll kill _you_ —”

“And so you’d kill me instead?”

“I wasn’t aiming to be _fatal!_ ”

“Which means you would have died.”

“Jade—” Hubert begins, but stops there, seeming to find some kind of uncomfortable truth in Jade’s words. Which is good, because Jade’s mouth appears to be running without his consent. There is a snowstorm burning in his ears, whiting out his thoughts. “You…” Hubert tries, but can’t find any purchase there, either.

“Honestly, trying to kill another blade’s driver,” Jade says, a sharp laughter underneath the words. “Certainly that goes against all common decency.”

“Your driver is a _monster_.”

“And you should leave him to me.”

Hubert splutters out a reply, but Jade stops listening. He turns on his heel and he walks.

\- - -

When Jade enters the labs, Galea is sitting at the table in the kitchen, with her head resting in her arms. She looks up when she sees him enter. Her eyes are red as if she’s been crying.

“If only you’d been an hour sooner,” she says, but there’s no real barbs in the accusation.

“I know,” Jade says. And: “I’m sorry,” he says.

“Citan told you, then.”

Jade makes some kind of noise. Or maybe Galea takes his silence as an answer.

Either way, Galea sighs and leans back in her chair, running a tired hand over her face. “Listen,” she says. “If- If all you can do is get yourself and Mythra out… That’s fine. I could live with that. So, please…” She looks up at him. “ _Please_ just…”

Jade doesn’t know why she stops, but maybe she sees something on his face.

He’s not sure how long he hesitates. He has no idea how long it takes him to say the words. His mind is a blizzard.

“Mythra’s dead,” he says.

He doesn’t remember the rest.

\- - -

Some time later.

Jade sits alone in his room, his back against the closed door, as snow falls around him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > _an eye for an eye.  
>  a tooth for a tooth.  
> a knife for the ribs._   
> 
> 
> \- [shitty horoscopes book iv: resolutions - libra](https://musterni-illustrates.tumblr.com/post/106768778601/shitty-horoscopes-book-iv-resolutions-its)  
>    
> 
>
>> _there will be scrapes and sutures:_   
>  _visciousness and victory_   
> 
> 
> \- [shitty horoscopes book iv: resolutions - cancer](https://musterni-illustrates.tumblr.com/post/106768778601/shitty-horoscopes-book-iv-resolutions-its)

It’s been three days since Mythra—

Since Citan—

At least, Jade thinks it’s been three days. It’s certainly been no less than three days. However long it has been has passed in a blur, a fog, a whiteness in his mind. But… sitting here is foolish, he realizes. He has waited long enough. There’s no reason to wait much longer.

Standing outside the door that leads to blade distribution, Jade touches the braid Mythra left in his hair, still tucked behind his left ear. He breathes, slow, despite the tightness in his lungs. He is just getting a lay of the land, so to speak. He doesn’t have to act today. The security of that thought is the only thing that gets him to move.

He pushes the door open. The clerk at the desk looks up from her book briefly, then rolls her eyes.

“I’m here to—” Jade says.

“No you’re not,” the clerk says.

“I’m sorry?”

“Your driver told me not to give you any core crystals.”

Jade stops for a second longer than he would like. His mind spins fast, at least, new paths laying down for his mouth to read, to speak. “Are you quite sure? Because Citan requested—”

“If he wants core crystals, he can get them himself,” the clerk interjects. When Jade opens his mouth yet again, she cuts him off with a: “Look, you can sort this out with your driver. Leave me out of it. I don’t get paid enough for this.”

She turns back to her book. Jade stands there for a moment or two, trying to make up his mind through the snow that clouds it. He could demand answers anyway. He could force his way past the desk and dividing wall, find Mythra on his own, ignoring the scene that would cause. But he is not brave, justice is only a close friend, and compassion wouldn’t help him here even if he had any. Truth sits in the back of his throat, useless and cold.

\- - -

At some point, he leaves.

\- - -

Days pass like liquid. Jade works, because he must, because he has nothing better to do. In theory the paperwork would be a distraction from the gaping hole that has opened in his chest, but in practice… It just aches.

Paperwork piles up on the floor. He doesn’t think too much about whether that’s due to the fact he has more than he can seem to get through reasonably anymore, or if it’s due to the fact he used to— _used to_ —pass the easier stuff to Mythra and apparently can’t break the habit. It’s probably not the latter. Why would it be?

He redoes the braid in his hair, hidden under layers, tucked behind his left ear, a weight that reminds him Mythra existed at all.

( _She’s not dead, which is perhaps the most absurd thing about his grief._

_Jade knows this. He knows she will remember him._

_He just needs to…_ )

The path before him, the map out, has never been so unclear, has never seemed so daunting to decipher.

He never thought he’d miss Mythra nagging at him until he spoke, tossed out a plan, considered it.

He never thought…

\- - -

Paperwork piles up on the floor.

He redoes the braid in his hair.

\- - -

Citan orders Anna dead.

\- - -

“Can I trust you with this?” Citan asks.

“Of course you can,” Jade says, smiling the whole time _._

He’s aware it’s a test. He doesn’t care if he fails, really.

( _If Citan forces his hand, then at least, it’ll all be over with._

_But, truthfully?_

_Citan will never know._

_In fact, he’s made Jade’s job incredibly easy._ )

\- - -

There’s no convincing to be done. A quick explanation, a bag packed. Money from Citan’s bank account stashed somewhere Anna will find it too late to protest.

Klaus and Galea don’t complain. They realize as well as Jade does that with the cover of “moving Anna to another department”, it would only account for him escorting Anna through the base, not all three of them. Anna apologizes once, but otherwise seems eager to leave. She’s more invigorated than Jade has seen her in—he can’t remember how long.

She jumps at every shadow, though. Keeps her mouth shut because she knows the price of her freedom.

“If this doesn’t work,” Anna says, right before they split.

“It will,” Jade insists, thinking about the wad of cash in his pocket—still Citan’s—that he’s going to use as bribery. Money talks. It always has.

“If it doesn’t,” Anna persists. “Just—kill me anyway, alright? Eat my heart.”

Jade forgets how to breathe.

( _Does she know what she’s saying?_

 _She must._ )

He recovers quickly, at least. Turns to waggle his eyebrows at Anna.

“Hm, kinky.”

“Ew— _Architect,_ ” Anna grumbles. “I’m trying to be sincere here, you bastard!”

“Is that really the way you intend to talk to your knight in shining armor?”

“Ha! You’re no knight, and that armor isn’t shining.” Anna can’t keep herself from smiling, and Jade smiles back, easy.

( _He finds, he thinks, that he’s going to miss her._ )

“Seriously, though,” Anna says, brow furrowed with concern. “This isn’t going to get you in trouble, is it?”

“You were there when I explained earlier.”

“Forgot most of it.”

Jade sighs. “Plans have already been made to declare you dead tomorrow—natural causes, since it can’t _look_ like murder. You being bedridden for months helps with that story, of course. Anyway. The only possible snag left is if the hefty bribe I have in my pocket isn’t enough to convince the soldiers meant to dispose of your body to keep their mouths shut. And if that happens, I can just as well kill _them._ ”

“Wow, that’s sweet of you.”

“Says the woman who just offered her heart for me to eat.”

Anna laughs.

“Offer still stands.”

Her smile is wide, her grin on-edge. Her face is that of a woman who decided that she was getting out of her prison today, one way or another.

“Let’s see how it goes,” Jade says, instead of _thank you._

\- - -

It goes fine.

As far as Jade is aware, Citan has no idea that Anna still lives.

It’s his first victory.

\- - -

He talks to Myyah.

She lives in a new room on the bigger half of base, where the rest of the offices and rooms are. It’s a two-room suite, three if you count the bathroom. One of the rooms is for living. The other has been converted into a lab. It’s in the lab that Jade finds her, poring over code on a computer.

She greets him, probably. He doesn’t care much.

“Citan ordered Anna dead,” he tells her, the moment she shuts up.

Myyah blinks. She was smiling, before. She isn’t, now.

“What do you mean? Why would he—”

Jade shrugs. “Does it matter?”

“Does it—but he _promised,_ ” Myyah insists. “What happened, really?” When Jade doesn’t answer, she gets to her feet. “ _Jade._ Tell me what happened.”

Jade adjusts his glasses. “You already made your choice,” he tells her, as bright as sun reflecting off of snow. “I hope you’re happy.”

He leaves her there, to deal with her grief, and goes back to dealing with his own.

\- - -

He expects to sleep better that night.

He doesn’t.

\- - -

“Can you believe this?” Jade says, holding up the offending piece of paperwork. “Not even a—”

He stops. Catches himself.

The room is empty, except for him.

He puts the paper down. Bites his tongue. Gets back to work.

\- - -

Somehow, for some reason or another, he ends up back in the labs.

Jade isn’t sure what he expected to find. Nor is he really exactly sure why he is here. But his feet carry him to Klaus and Galea’s desks, following the sounds of living—voices, computer fans whirring, clicking keyboards. They’re working.

“Oh, Jade!” Klaus says, looking up. “Fancy seeing you around here.”

“What,” Jade says, “are you…?”

“Klaus had an idea,” Galea explains.

“Not sure if it’ll come to anything, but at least if we throw attempts at it, we can’t get yelled at for not working. And I might as well pursue my ludicrous ideas while I’m still getting paid for it, though I’m sure all my funding is forfeit the moment they decide to kill me anyway and be done with it.” Klaus laughs to himself, pleased, somehow, bending over his computer again.

Jade wants to say Klaus looks more unkempt than usual, but he really doesn’t. There is a significant stack of empty coffee mugs on the edge of his desk, though. Galea’s, too.

“What’s the idea?” Jade finds himself asking, curiosity always getting the better of him.

“A blade without an elemental alignment,” Galea answers, and laughs before Jade can open his mouth. “I know, I know how it sounds.”

“I said it was ludicrous,” Klaus adds, in defense of himself. “It’s hard to get _ether_ crystals unaligned like that, never mind _core_ crystals. But…! Like I said, keeping us busy, gives us something to put on progress reports…”

“Best we can do when they aren’t giving us explicit orders,” Galea adds, with a shrug. She’s spun her chair around, leaning back against it as she looks at Jade—tired, but. But much like Anna, past the point of giving a shit. “But we all know why they haven’t done that, don’t we?”

( _Because, they know, if they wanted Anna dead…_

 _Why not them, next?_ )

“Any news from Citan?” Klaus asks. “About us, I mean.”

Jade realizes he hasn’t said anything

“Oh,” he says. “No.”

Galea gives him a funny little look. “What are you here for, then?” she asks.

Jade doesn’t know. Which is, frankly, terrifying, if he thinks about it too much.

“Oh, come on, Galea,” Klaus interjects, to Jade’s relief. “Jade doesn’t need an excuse.” And then Klaus taps a few more things into his computer, then rolls his chair back. “Coffee?” he asks.

And that’s how Jade finds himself sitting at the little table in their kitchen, a mug of coffee sitting half-drained in his hands. Klaus and Galea sit on either of his corners, chatting to themselves, drinking their own coffee, painfully normal. If Jade’s spoken, he doesn’t remember it. If they’ve addressed him, he doesn’t remember that, either. He certainly doesn’t remember drinking half a mug of coffee, and yet here he is.

The coffee tastes… fine.

Bitter.

Cold, but that’s to be expected.

Galea lightly touches her fingertips against Jade’s arm.

“Hey, Jade,” she says.

“Hmm?” He turns to her, face fixed with a smile.

“Get yourself out of here, alright?” she says. “Do whatever you need to.”

“I can’t leave you here,” Jade says.

“You really can,” Klaus says.

“Mythra wouldn’t forgive me—”

“She wouldn’t forgive you if you died, either,” Galea insists.

“Well,” Jade says, and gets stuck there.

( _Would he even know to find her, if he died?_

 _Could he dare inflict himself, with no memory of who she is, upon her?_ )

Klaus says something Jade doesn’t hear. Galea shoots Klaus a look, says something else, lost to the roar in Jade’s ears. He thinks—He thinks they argue, about something.

The next thing he’s really aware of is a coffee mug in his hands as he makes his way through the winding hallways of the base, back to his room.

\- - -

“Klaus, seriously,” Galea says once Jade’s gone. “You can’t push him.”

Klaus leans his hand on the edge of the kitchen sink, gesturing avidly. The sink is still running.

“If we let this go any longer—”

“He’s grieving!”

“You _saw him_ , if he gets stuck here because—”

“Because we couldn’t snap him out of it?” Galea finishes, incredulous. “He wasn’t even listening to us! Klaus—”

“ _Galea._ ”

They stare each other down for a long moment, then Klaus huffs and starts aggressively rinsing out his mug of coffee. Galea sighs, leans her hip against the counter.

“What is another week going to hurt, really? Surely we can give him a week,” she says.

Klaus scoffs. “If he even comes to see us in a week.”

“That’s—”

“He went three before he even bothered to drop by!” Klaus reminds her, words tossed over his shoulder, as he continues rinsing the mug, more thoroughly than it probably needed rinsed. Galea bites her tongue, bites back the bile in her throat.

“Then we come up with a reason we need him over here,” she says.

“Citan will think we’re plotting.”

“Citan already thinks we’re plotting.”

“He killed Mythra, what more reason does he need to kill Jade?” Klaus asks, his movements all exaggerated with his fury. “The sooner we get him out of here—”

“The only thing we can do is try and convince him, Klaus,” Galea reminds him. “And if we convince him to do something reckless…”

“The memory patch is only being careful—”

“It ends with him shattered.”

Klaus swallows his words. “It…” he tries, but he’s clearly floundering.

“I’m not pressing him on that,” Galea insists. “I’m not pressing him on anything.”

Klaus drops the mug into the sink. Turns off the water. “ _Fine_ ,” he says, sharp, and storms out of the room.

“Fine!” Galea calls after him, feeling increasingly petty, and increasingly stupid.

\- - -

The clerk at the desk for core crystal distribution looks up from her book only long enough to see Jade.

“Again,” she says, “I’m not giving you core crystals. I have no clue what’s going on between you and Citan, but I want no part in it.”

“That’s fine,” Jade says. “I’m not here for a core crystal.”

“Then… what are you here for?”

“I just want you to tell me if Mythra’s still here.”

The clerk blinks at Jade, long and slow. Jade stands, immovable, his face fixed in a smile. He’s not ready—he still has plans to make, consider, test. He needs this information before he can do any of that. He needs this information before he can do anything at all.

The clerk slowly moves for her bookmark, still staring at Jade, her face quirking towards a smile. “Why, she your girlfriend or something?” she asks, laughing.

“Eugh.” Jade gags, on reflex. “Disgusting.”

“Alright,” the clerk says, like she doesn’t believe him, which is worse. She does close her book and get to her feet, though. “I’ll go see if your girlfriend’s still here.”

“Please don’t call her my—”

“I don’t think we’ve had a shipment out, though, so chances are good.” She winks at him. “Be right back.”

Jade pinches the bridge of his nose, breathing long and slow. It’s fine. It doesn’t matter. There are much, much worse things to put up with. Thinking about Mythra’s reaction to this almost breaks him out of his funk. Then he remembers—or rather, processes—that she’s not here to commiserate with him. She’s not here at all.

( _his insides go very, very cold_ )

Thankfully he’s able to hold onto his awareness of the moment long enough for the clerk to return and sit back down in her chair.

“Yeah, your girlfriend hasn’t gone anywhere,” she answers.

Jade’s mouth tastes like ash. He makes himself smile, but he’s already smiling.

“Thank you,” he says, and leaves.

\- - -

He redoes the braid in his hair. The weight of it against his ear is comforting.

\- - -

He ends up with another coffee mug from Klaus, somehow. He doesn’t remember talking to Klaus, or Galea.

\- - -

Citan lets himself into Jade’s room.

“Sir?” Jade asks, looking up from the ever-growing stack of paperwork that spills over his desk, the floor.

Citan doesn’t say anything. He simply approaches Jade’s desk, rifles through the paperwork for a moment, and then finally picks a stack up. He looks down his nose at Jade; disapproving, irritated, cold.

He doesn’t say anything. He takes the stack of paperwork with him.

\- - -

Every fire alarm on the base disabled.

A lit cigarette tossed into the corner of an unkept storage room.

\- - -

Jade wakes up because something is wrong.

He wakes up slow, groggy, synapses firing but not quite fast enough. He still owes a hefty sleep debt, and his body fights waking with the same effort it dumps adrenaline into his system to get him up _faster_. Something is wrong.

Something is—

_His room is on fire._

Jade jolts upright, head dizzy with protest, panic flaring through his body. He manages to gather the presence of mind to pull at his internal ether and drop several feet of snow on top of the roaring flames.

It suffocates them well enough, but the back wall is mostly missing, and his desk—his _bookshelf_ —

Jade staggers out of his bed.

The air is hot, dreadful. Every time he inhales he inhales smoke. There’s still plenty of fire raging on the other side of the missing wall—missing _walls._ His bathroom door isn’t on hinges anymore. That wall crumbles as much as the back one does. The fires that still roar will surely melt Jade’s work within the hour unless someone else puts them out. Jade would do it himself, but—

It’s petty.

It’s devastating.

He clears some of the snow just to be sure, even though he knows it will be pointless.

His bookshelf is barely a bookshelf, anymore. The left half of it is near completely missing, what remains of the shelves collapsing on themselves, the top two shelves having collapsed onto the floor. The books are all heavily charred, nearly ash, and it’s—

He drops to his knees, just to check, even though he knows where the book with his notes in it was, knows already what he will find.

There is no book. There are no notes. There is only ash.

Jade laughs, empty, broken.

Nearly all of his possessions, barring his clothes, were on that bookshelf. And now they’re all gone. Just like that.

( _Mythra’s voice rings in his ears._

 _“If you’d stop sitting on your ass, we wouldn’t still be here!”_ )

He was trying to buy his friends some time, to bargain for their freedom, and this is what he bought instead.

Mythra, dead.

Everything he owned, gone.

And the knowledge, clear as crystal, that his driver really would kill him over—what? What did Jade even _do_?

( _He could go kill Citan now, but it still wouldn’t salvage all the things he gambled._ )

His door slams open, and he jolts. He’s halfway through summoning his spear when he sees Hubert.

“ _Jade,_ ” Hubert says, horrified and concerned all at once. “Why are you just—never mind, come here, come _here_.” He’s grabbing Jade by the arm and yanking him to the feet, out of the room, away from the fire. Jade is too stunned, too defeated, to do anything other than let Hubert at it.

Hubert’s hand remains clamped around Jade’s wrist. There’s a brief flash of ether through Jade’s veins, followed by a hiss from Hubert.

“Architect, Jade, I can’t just—Flynn! Give me a hand, will you?”

Jade is passed unceremoniously from Hubert’s hands to Flynn’s. Flynn doesn’t repeat the vice grip that Hubert had on Jade, but his grip is still firm, fingers strong. The next few seconds of Hubert complaining and/or instructing Flynn are seconds that Jade misses, but soon enough he finds himself being led steadily through the base.

It is not in complete ruins. The fire seems to be contained, at least, primarily to storage as well as the adjacent living quarters. Definitely not a coincidence. Jade finds himself more disappointed than relieved that more of the base _didn’t_ burn along with—

Well, it doesn’t matter.

“Sorry about this,” Flynn says to Jade, which Jade barely listens to. “Hubert probably wants to check you over, but he’s one of two water blades we have around here, so he’s otherwise occupied at the moment…”

“I can imagine,” Jade answers, dry. His throat burns.

Flynn makes more idle chitchat. Mostly status reports on the fire itself, on the resultant casualties, surprise that Jade hadn’t been found and evacuated sooner.

“No one’s entirely sure what caused it, either,” Flynn comments. “Though I suspect we’ll have our answers once the fire’s been put out. If you ask me, I think someone just got careless…”

Jade laughs, long and bitter. Careless? Oh, no, he’s quite certain it was rather deliberate, and planned down to the second, besides.

“Jade?” Flynn asks. “What’s… I don’t understand what’s funny.”

“Nothing,” Jade says, because one does not just casually admit that his driver tried to kill him via arson and massive property damage. “Nothing, I just… thought of something…” The excuse is weak, not nearly as witty as he would have liked. He laughs a little longer, unable to quite make himself stop. His core feels so heavy.

They arrive at the base infirmary, where several injured are either being taken care of or are waiting for care from one of two people. The first is a regular human medic. The second is a healing blade. They seem to have their hands full, and the portion of Jade’s mind that isn’t being eaten by the fact _he was very nearly murdered_ notes that they definitely seem to be feeling Hubert’s lack. He wonders subsequently if he’s even worth looking over—whatever damage he has will certainly heal by tomorrow, given that he’s a blade.

But for some Architect-forsaken reason he cannot get his mouth open fast enough to say that, and Flynn holds him in place, and the healing blade makes his way over to check on Jade.

“He’s probably fine,” Flynn says, which Jade raises his eyebrows at, “but you know Hubert.”

The healing blade laughs. “I do,” he agrees. He’s a man with long brown hair and a build that doesn’t suggest he’s a healer at all. Jade forgets his name. Nonetheless, he takes Jade’s hands, gentle. Earth ether slides through Jade’s system, slow but kind.

“Well, doc?” Jade asks, just to get this over with.

“Minor lung damage, otherwise fine,” the healer reports. He lets go of Jade’s hands. “Forgive me if I don’t heal you more than I have, I should save my ether—”

“Oh, perfectly understandable,” Jade assures him. “I’m sure I’ll live.”

( _For now, anyway._ )

( _And for much longer, if he can fucking pull it off._ )

“Get him a glass of water, okay Flynn?”

“Got it.”

And that’s how Jade ends up squirreled away in Hubert’s office, with Flynn dutifully watching him drink a glass of water until he’s finished the damn thing.

“Can I go?” Jade asks, when he’s done.

Flynn fidgets, just a little, weight shifted from one foot to the other. His hand rests not on the hilt of the sword at his waist, but rather the belt, close to the scabbard. “Listen,” he says. “I don’t want to let you go anywhere until Hubert says I should.”

“And which one of you is the driver in the relationship?”

“I…” Flynn says, and then, “ _Wow,_ ” Flynn says. He shifts his weight from foot to foot again. “Look, Jade, it’s been a rough night for us all,” he says. “Just stay put, please? And try and rest.”

Jade would _love_ to rest, except he’s extremely conscious of how he _nearly got murdered,_ and though he survived with his life, he lost _nearly everything else._

“I have very important things I need to check on, you know—”

“Half the base is still on fire,” Flynn protests. “Please, Jade. For Hubert.”

Flynn’s pleading face isn’t exactly convincing. The weight in Jade’s legs keeps him rooted to the chair he’s in, though.

“Can I at least have a pen and some paper?”

“You really shouldn’t worry about work _now,_ Jade.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not work. It’s personal.”

Flynn sends Jade a funny look, but does get pen and paper for Jade.

“Thank you,” Jade says, crisply, as he takes them.

Then he hesitates.

“What’s the date?” he asks.

“Oh,” Flynn says. “That would be… Celsius thir—wait. Fourteenth, I suppose.”

Jade nods, marks the date down on the paper before writing anything else, though he squints at it for a moment. That feels. Incorrect. Were they not still in Verius? Undine, maybe… How much time has passed without Jade realizing it?

( _How much paperwork has he put the wrong date on?_ )

Nevertheless.

Jade writes himself a new note.

It’s short, lacks information, but should get the job done. If the worst comes to pass, then… he will know all he needs to know, with this, even if he will not know everything. Yes, he could rewrite the original note verbatim if he desired, but he’s too exhausted, too furious, and is afraid—more than anything, he is afraid—that if he lets a future him make decisions based on the old note, there will never be an end to this. Clear instructions will be better.

He hesitates for a few minutes, and then, throat dry, makes a decision.

He writes a second copy of the note. And a third.

The first and second copies of the new note he tucks into his pocket, for later. The third, he holds in his hands, and he waits.

“Architect,” is the first thing Hubert says when he enters the room, shivering exaggeratedly. “Could it _be_ any colder in here? Seriously, Flynn, you could have said something to him.”

“Hubert,” Flynn protests, weary, but it’s halfhearted. The whole exchange is not quite fond, but it’s still somewhat gentle, and it makes something that Jade doesn’t recognize rise up in his core.

“If I’m being a nuisance, I can go,” Jade says, brightly. He doesn’t comment on how much ether he’s apparently outputting. He does attempt to rein it in a little, though.

“No, sit,” Hubert tells him, as if Jade had even moved to get up. Jade submits himself to Hubert fussing over his health for a minute or two, despite Flynn insisting that Terra _already checked_ —Terra must be the name of the other healer. “We got the fire under control, if you care,” Hubert talks, as his ether settles itself in Jade’s veins—healing damage that Terra ignored. “Most of that section of base is ruined, though. I hear talk of repairs, but I somehow doubt they’ll do more than the bare minimum. Still, we’re understaffed enough that they can afford to just shuffle us around instead of relocating us to another base. Good news and bad news, I suppose.”

Jade files away that information. He’ll have to stake out a new room himself, then, and more importantly transfer his own things. He only has clothes, now, of course—thinking that stings, in the deepest part of Jade’s core—but there’s also that note in his sock drawer, and all the cash he’s been hoarding. None of his stashes would have been touched by the fire, he think, but it’ll certainly be suspect if he’s found with it. The sooner he gets that taken care of, the better, but he has business here, first.

“I would have healed fine on my own, you know,” Jade says. “You didn’t have to heal me.”

Hubert scoffs, shoves his glasses back up his nose. “Of course I did,” he retorts, in a cadence that makes Jade’s core suddenly and violently ache for Mythra in ways he cannot quite put a pin on, and doesn’t know how to think about.

“It was a waste of ether,” Jade says, instead.

“Not really.”

That violent ache, again. It makes Jade dizzy. Hubert nods for Flynn to exit the room to give them some privacy, which Jade supposes means he doesn’t have to do it himself. He does what he can to find his footing instead.

“Anyway,” Hubert says, crossing his arms. “You’re fine, physically. But otherwise…?”

He pitches the end of his sentence up in an uncertain, probing question.

Jade doesn’t answer it. He doesn’t know how to. He doesn’t have time.

“Can I trust you with something, Hubert?”

Hubert opens his mouth—maybe to tell Jade to stop dodging the question—but then he seems to reconsider.

“…Trust me with what?”

Jade lifts the piece of paper—folded in half, of course—waving it idly. “A message that I will need delivered to me, should the worst happen.” He doesn’t outright say _should I die and lose my memories and Citan wake me up again._ Hubert should be able to figure that out on his own. “Ideally, I’ll trust my own handwriting more than something delivered by word of mouth, but if you have to destroy the note and pass the message to me in person, that’s fine.”

The message getting to him is more important than anything else. And provided Hubert doesn’t forget, he’ll be able to tell Jade the whole story if Jade asks, anyway. Or at least, what Hubert understands of it, which Jade has to admit is more than he wanted. It works out, though.

Hubert looks Jade up and down, squeezing at his arms as if for comfort. “Do you really think that something is going to happen?” he asks, but not with the haughty confidence he usually throws around. Oh, there’s still an edge, of course. But the edge sounds, this time, like fear.

( _He was there, when Mythra died._

 _He knows what Jade is up against._ )

“All of my contingency plans burned with that room,” Jade answers, obliquely, and tries not to think too much about it. “Can I trust you, Hubert?” He waves the note again, tired. “You can’t tell anyone of the contents.”

Hubert sniffs. Snatches the paper from Jade’s hands.

“I suppose I can read it then,” he begins, but at that point Jade has gotten to his feet, and it derails Hubert’s train of thought. “Hey, wait a second, where are you going? You should—”

“I have other things to take care of.” Jade waits until he’s at the door to add: “And yes, you can read it, but I won’t be answering any of your questions about it.”

“Jade—”

“Thank you, Hubert.”

And Jade leaves before Hubert can say another word.

\- - -

> _10.14.2419_
> 
> _Citan has killed you before, and he will do it again._
> 
> _Do not wait. Do not hesitate. Do not waste another ten years._
> 
> _Kill him before he manages to kill you a fifth time._
> 
> _And then eat his fucking heart._
> 
> _It’s what Mythra would have wanted._

\- - -

The second note he takes to Galea.

( _It’s a relief to see the labs totally untouched by the fire._

_A surprise, as well._

_Why wouldn’t Citan try to clean both problems up at once?_ )

“Oh, good, Jade!” Galea says, delighted and relieved, as he enters the labs. She moves across the kitchen to greet him. “Are you alright? We heard about—” She hesitates, eyes scanning him for something, and seems to lose her words. “I mean, I guess you’re standing here, so…”

She trails off. Klaus stands to join them.

“My room didn’t survive,” Jade says, just so they know. He herds them out of the entranceway, away from the prying ears of guards still stationed outside the labs’ doors, though they all still end up standing at the edge of the kitchen. “But I did, so I suppose that’s enough.”

“Oh, _Jade_ ,” Klaus says, like his heart is breaking, and Jade doesn’t know how to deal with that, doesn’t have _time_ for that.

Jade shoves the note into Galea’s hands.

“What’s…?” she asks, taking it.

“A message to myself, should the worst happen,” he tells her, parroting what he said to Hubert. “I’d prefer the note itself got delivered—I would trust my own handwriting more than anything else—but just the message will do, if you must.”

Galea looks at him a long moment, and then just opens the note. Jade sniffs and adjusts his glasses, but doesn’t stop her for some inane reason he can’t put his finger on. He should really be going, should be getting the remains of his things from the remains of his room, and yet…

Still. Better to endure questions from them than from Hubert. Klaus leans over Galea’s shoulder to read, too.

“ _Jade,_ ” Galea says finally, and nothing more, her eyes lifting to his face. She looks horrified.

He raises his eyebrows at her. Doesn’t move.

“Has it really been five times?” she asks.

“No, wait,” Klaus interjects, and Jade can see him doing the math. “Is this… four? Or three?”

“Three,” Jade answers. “That I counted. But it was nearly four, and it will be four if I need that note.”

“ _Architect,_ ” Klaus swears.

“Why not just go kill him now?” Galea asks, frustrated, but more than that, _sincere_. “Everyone’s still in uproar from the fire, you might as well take advantage of that!”

She has a point. Jade finds himself protesting, anyway.

“Even if they do not notice the murder, they will certainly notice me breaking you out.”

“Then leave us here,” Galea insists.

“And who’s going to drive Mythra?” Jade asks. “Do you expect me to? Can blades even drive other blades?”

“I mean,” Galea says.

“Hm,” Klaus says, like he’s thinking about it.

“And even if I could,” Jade carries on. “If I left you here, Mythra would never forgive me.”

“Jade—”

“She’d remember, and she’d never forgive me.”

“She won’t forgive you if you die, either.”

( _Have they had this conversation, before?_

 _Somehow, Jade feels like they have, but he can’t quite remember it._ )

“I won’t die,” Jade says, feeling cold, unsteady—the exact reasons he _doesn’t_ want to attempt to make a move now. There are too many variables, too many things that he can’t trust himself to react to without a plan. He needs a plan. “Just give me some time. If I can have just a little more time, I’ll take care of this.”

( _He pleads with them, but it’s not them he needs the mercy from._ )

Galea and Klaus exchange weighty glances, come to a decision that Jade can’t quite read.

“Come back tomorrow,” Klaus says, as he meets Jade’s eyes.

“We’ll have a bag packed for Mythra—things I’m sure she won’t want to leave behind,” Galea says.

“I just said I’m not leaving without you,” Jade protests.

“I know,” Galea assures him, gentle. “But just in case.”

“One less thing to worry about,” Klaus agrees. He reaches out like he wants to touch Jade, but doesn’t quite. “Just come back tomorrow, okay? Then we can talk.”

“We want to help you,” Galea adds.

Which is baffling, Jade thinks.

“I need to go,” he manages to say, throat somewhat tight, and extricates himself from the labs.

\- - -

The new room Jade was able to get his hands on is smaller than his last; the bed and dresser take up nearly its entire space, and there is no other furniture. It has a connected bathroom, though, and that’s enough for Jade.

Citan lets himself in without knocking, as per usual. Jade looks up from moving the pile of his shirts from his bed to his dresser.

“Jade,” Citan says by way of greeting. If there is tension in the air, it does not sit on Citan’s shoulders. He seems the same now as he did yesterday, and the day before.

“Citan,” Jade greets in return, which _does_ make his driver pause, eyebrows quirking upward. Jade can’t remember the last time he’s called Citan anything but ‘sir’ to his face, so that’s probably warranted, but Jade is past the point of caring. Citan already attempted to murder him. A little lack of respect is going to do precisely nothing to make that process go any faster than it was already going.

Of course, if Citan reads into it, he might note that it’s a sign Jade is well aware of who caused the fire, and why. Jade doesn’t really see a problem with that.

He deliberately folds another shirt to tuck in his new dresser, taking his eyes off of Citan. Normally he wouldn’t dare, but he decides to err on the side of refusing to let Citan see that he’s bothered. He pays close attention to his ether flow, instead, hoping he can siphon it off should Citan try to summon his spear and end it right now anyway.

“I see you took the liberty of moving your things yourself,” Citan says, neutral. A compliment? A complaint?

Jade folds another shirt.

“Everyone else seems to have their hands full,” Jade answers, trying to give away as little as possible.

The hum Citan makes tells Jade that he intends to burn the rest of Jade’s things at the next chance he gets anyway, which is fair, but unfortunate. Jade hates how well Citan can read him.

( _It’s a good thing, he supposes, that he left a copy of the note with both Hubert and Galea, then._ )

“I’ll see about getting you a desk,” Citan says, and leaves.

“Kind of you,” Jade mutters to himself, bitter.

\- - -

Jade stands by the locked door to core crystal distribution, waiting patiently for the clerk to arrive and unlock the door for the day. The fire doesn’t seem to have reached this far, which is a relief, but he wants to be sure. In the meantime, he’s taken the liberty of studying the lock, the door, the windows… the latter are a fool’s errand, but the lock and the door can both be easily broken if he so needs to get in, after hours.

( _A voice that is decidedly not Mythra’s whispers in his mind: break in now, find Mythra, make your escape._ )

( _He knows it is not Mythra, because her voice screams kill him kill him kill him KILL HIM._ )

Before he can make up his mind, the clerk arrives to open the door and get to her job.

“Ah,” she says, when she sees Jade, and fumbles with her keys for a moment. Her smile is winning, even though there are bags under her eyes. “Here to check on your girlfriend?”

The gag reflex is instant.

“Disgusting. Never mind. I’m leaving.”

The clerk laughs.

“No you aren’t, you want to check the damage for yourself, don’t you?”

Jade very much wants to for some irrational reason, but thankfully the rational part of his brain overrides it—he’s walked a full circle around this building three times, and the fire did not touch it. Nothing could have happened to Mythra short of her being stolen. Which, given that the door is the only way in, the lock has not been busted, and the door is similarly undamaged: unlikely.

So.

“Actually, I think I’m good,” Jade says, sharp, and leaves.

\- - -

He comes back to his new room to find a folding table set up in the spare corner, which is faster than he expected Citan to work on the matter. It’s got a matching chair and already has a stack of paperwork sitting on it, which Jade takes in and then—

Notices the pair of socks sitting on his dresser.

Matched and folded, deliberately placed by someone who wasn’t him.

Dread settles into his stomach. Panic blots out coherent thought. Jade crosses the short distance to the dresser and yanks his sock drawer open, digging, digging, digging and _not finding._ It should be there. He placed it just hours ago.

_Of course Citan went through his things._

Thorough search completed twice—which was frankly more than enough—Jade gives up and returns all his socks to his drawer. Nothing he has will survive his death, he realizes. Which means…

Wait.

Was it just the tally in the drawer, or his new note, as well?

Horror coating his throat, Jade hastily checks his pockets and feels—relief. He forgot to tuck the new note into his sock drawer along with the tally, and thank Architect for that. If Citan had found that… if Citan _knew_ what he was planning…

Jade stops. Checks his stashes of cash, and lets himself breathe only when he discovers those are still safe, as well.

Now he just has to decide what to do with the note in his pocket.

To trust that Klaus and Galea will outlive him is ludicrous. Hubert might, but that requires him not getting reassigned to a new base while Jade is dead. Which, if Jade is only dead for three days, the chances are… decent, he supposes, but it is still a lot to trust without having his own insurance.

But then, isn’t that why he made copies of the note for them, to begin with?

He leans his weight against the dresser, rubbing at his temples with a free hand, feeling exhausted. He just needs to think of a better place to hide it, somewhere Citan won’t look, something Citan won’t throw out if he dies—

Oh, no.

Jade’s head snaps up in horror.

“ _Mythra_ ,” he gasps, and fucking books it.

\- - -

“ _Why_ ,” the clerk at the desk moans, “did I even _bother_ opening my book?”

Jade tries to catch his breath as discreetly as possible, not _wanting_ to look like he just ran all the goddamn way here, but his lungs are rebelling and so is his stomach.

“Is she—”

“She hasn’t gone anywhere. I checked after you left just to be sure. No you can’t see the core crystal. Yes you will have to take my word for it. I will promise you that I haven’t received any orders to do _jack shit_ with any core crystal in the inventory since you were last here.”

“But—”

“Your girlfriend’s fine, so get out and let me get back to reading.”

Well, his only other choice is breaking back there himself, and he cannot do that unless he intends to do _everything else_ today.

Jade leaves.

\- - -

Three days later, Citan’s still alive.

Hubert thinks this is ridiculous.

\- - -

Klaus is in the middle of eating breakfast—breakfast for him, anyway—when Hubert walks into the labs.

“Hubert,” Klaus says, instead of _hello,_ blinking in surprise to see him. They’ve interacted a few times over the course of the project as a whole, and even fewer times in the last handful of months. Hubert spent most of his time interacting with Galea when he was visiting the labs, then. When Mythra was still…

Anyway.

Hubert isn’t high on the list of people Klaus thinks would be sent over for official business, which is probably good, but Hubert _is_ high on the list of people Klaus still considers friends living on this base, and he clearly wouldn’t be over here if he didn’t have something to say.

“What brings you around here?” Klaus asks, cutting up a bite of breakfast with his fork and shoving it into his mouth, because guests be damned, he put off eating for significantly longer than he should have this morning—er, afternoon.

“Well I was wondering if you’d spoken with Jade, recently,” Hubert answers. His tone is kind of sharp, nose upturned, arms crossed; clearly playing at not being worried. It reminds Klaus of Mythra.

( _he wonders if her siblings inherited that trait, too_

 _suddenly the eggs in his mouth taste rubbery, bad_ )

Klaus forces himself to swallow.

“Not since the fire,” he tells Hubert. “So… three days?”

“Three days, yes,” Hubert agrees. And then: “Damn.”

Klaus is not familiar enough with Hubert to read him _perfectly,_ but Hubert is _clearly_ agitated. Fear kicks like a drum in Klaus’ chest.

“Is Jade—you’ve _seen_ Jade since then, right?” he asks, hastily.

“Oh, yes, he’s still alive,” Hubert says.

Klaus breaths out in relief. Hubert sends Klaus a look that’s a little apologetic, and his eyes flash with a realization. Whatever that realization was isn’t clear in his next words.

“I saw him this morning, but Citan seems intent on running him ragged, meaning I wasn’t able to _speak_ with him,” Hubert says, still agitated. “But seeing as Citan is still alive and Jade is continuing to play at secretary, I’m forced to assume that he’s stalling. Please tell me it’s part of some plan the lot of you have.”

Klaus finds himself… not at a loss for words, exactly, but at a loss of desire to answer. Hubert is so clearly trying to find the best of this situation, but it’s not that easy— _Architect,_ nothing about this last year has been that easy. He takes a drink of his coffee to buy time. Sets the coffee mug back down before he speaks.

“It… isn’t,” Klaus admits. “If Jade has a plan, we’re not aware of it.” Galea isn’t in the room, but he might as well speak for her.

Hubert sniffs, flicks his glasses back up his nose. “Do _you_ have a plan?” he asks.

Klaus hesitates here. He fiddles with the handle of his coffee mug, realizing… can he even _trust_ Hubert? Thankfully he made this realization before giving away any information, but what is wrong with him? That soft to a friendly face?

He levels his gaze at Hubert, hardens it, and hardens his heart, as well.

“And why should I trust you, anyway?”

Hubert blinks. “Why should you…? For the love of—” His arms drop to his sides. “Did Galea not tell you she gave me that memory patch of yours? I’m already on your side whether I like it or not, of course I want to help—”

“And?” Klaus counters, steady. “So long as no one finds out about your memory patch, you’re in the clear. I don’t take that as reason enough for you to be on our side.”

“Jade trusts me.”

That’s news to Klaus.

“Does he, now?”

“After the fire, he gave me a note,” Hubert says, and then laughs in triumph. “Aha! He gave you one too, didn’t he?”

Klaus must’ve made some expression that gave him away.

“We’re on the same side, Klaus,” Hubert insists, before Klaus can confirm. “If I can do anything to help you—to help _Jade._ I’m tired of watching this charade. And I’m scared he might…” Hubert fumbles with the words for a second. Gives up with a huff. “Well, you saw the note.”

Klaus did.

(Jade’s crisp handwriting, the words somewhat shaky:

_Do not waste another ten years._

And:

_Kill him before he manages to kill you a fifth time._

It makes Klaus sick.)

“Well?” Hubert presses, impatient. “ _Do_ you have a plan, or not?”

“We do,” Klaus admits. “We’re working on creating another blade—Hubert please don’t give me that look. I know.” He knows. Architect, does he know. The last thing he wants to do is lose another child. He’s already lost so many. “But Galea and I thought—one more go. We’ll give it one more go, and if that doesn’t work…”

“Then you’ll just give up?” Hubert asks, sounding offended, somehow.

Klaus shrugs, tired. “What’s the other option? Keep creating children that they’ll steal from us?” He shakes his head. “No—we’ve only got one more gamble in us. Even this one probably isn’t going to…” He tries not to think about last time, about how high the chances are of Citan confiscating this blade before it’s finished as well.

He looks at Hubert, instead.

Something occurs to him.

“You’re willing to help, right?” he asks.

“That’s what I said, wasn’t it?”

“Right.” Klaus leans back in his chair, expression distant as he calculates. “With you helping—” Wait. “Can we trust your driver?”

Hubert scoffs. “Flynn? Of course. He’s not exactly the biggest fan of your captivity. At the very least, he’ll turn a blind eye, but if things go south, he’ll be on our side.”

“Well, even if you can’t, provided Jade eating Citan’s heart doesn’t completely fuck him over, and he can get his hands on Mythra… Jade and Mythra alone would be enough to cover mine and Galea’s escape,” Klaus says, barely looking at Hubert. “But with _you_ helping… that’d be more than enough, wouldn’t it? Even if we have to fight our whole damn way out of here.”

“I suppose so,” Hubert agrees, slowly. He hesitates. “What about Myyah?”

Klaus’ thoughts go dark.

( _two children lost, all because she couldn’t keep her mouth fucking shut_ —)

“Myyah made her choice.”

Hubert hesitates a second longer. Klaus takes a drink of coffee to drown his anger.

“Then the only thing we’re actually waiting on is Jade,” Hubert says. He swears under his breath. “What is he _waiting_ for?”

“Beats me,” Klaus answers. He huffs, frustrated. “But believe me, if I could figure out how to get him unstuck, I would in a heartbeat. I don’t want to see him—He needs out of here. More than we do. He refuses to go without us, but…”

“I wouldn’t want to leave you here, either,” Hubert says, strangely gentle.

Klaus laughs, empty. “Yes, but the worst that happens to Galea and I? We die. The worst that happens to Jade…”

Hubert’s breath hitches. He fidgets for a moment, his glasses hastily fixed. It struck a chord with him, somehow—a blade thing, Klaus figures. Something that humans will never be able to understand quite as well.

“I’ll talk to him,” Hubert declares. “Surely there must be some way I can convince him.”

He leaves.

Klaus prays Jade isn’t too stubborn to listen.

\- - -

When Hubert finally manages to catch Jade alone—holed up in his room basically buried underneath a stack of paperwork—the first thing that crosses his mind isn’t about plans, or questions, or Citan. No, the first thing that crosses Hubert’s mind is Jade doesn’t look like he’s seen a good night’s sleep recently. Or maybe not in his entire life.

“Jade?” Hubert asks.

Jade hums and looks up, weary. There are bags under his eyes.

“When was the last time you slept?”

“Oh, last night.”

Hubert doubts that.

( _And he’s right to. Jade frankly doesn’t remember the last time he caught more than fifteen or so minutes at a time—oh, minus the time he woke up to_ his room being on fire.

 _But ‘when did you last get a full night’s sleep?’ was not the question Hubert asked, was it?_ )

Hubert sighs. “Come with me,” he says, moving for the door.

Jade blinks a few times. “And to what, exactly, do I owe the pleasure of your invitation?”

“Is that supposed to be—” Hubert doesn’t know, and Jade’s smile is too lopsided. _Architect._ He scowls. “Listen. As healer on this base, it is my duty to see that everyone here is in as perfect health as I can get them. That includes you.” He nods towards the door again.

Perhaps it is a testament to how tired Jade is that he listens.

\- - -

“I don’t think sleep deprivation counts as a serious medical condition,” Jade protests, sitting on one of the cots in the infirmary.

“It’s one of the most serious, actually,” Hubert counters. His eyes blaze behind his glasses. His smile is tight-lipped, no-nonsense.

“Don’t you have work to be doing?”

Hubert inhales, long and slow, and deliberately shoves his glasses up his nose.

“I don’t, actually,” he answers through gritted teeth.

Jade sighs. “I suppose I’m not getting out of this.”

“If you aren’t asleep in an hour, you can go.”

“Considerate of you—”

“Shut up before I regret this.”

Jade raises his hands in a subtle defeat. It’s clear—more than clear, really—that Hubert knows exactly what he is offering, and exactly why it matters. Citan isn’t likely to murder Jade in his sleep if there are witnesses, after all. And he’d have to have a damn good excuse for killing anyone other than his own blade. So if Hubert sits and keeps watch, just as Mythra did…

( _‘Hey, no reason to look a gift horse in the mouth!’ chimes in the voice that sounds like Mythra in his mind._ )

Jade’s core aches.

He touches the braid behind his ear, briefly, and then he lays down before Hubert can bother him about the expression he’s too tired to school off his face.

\- - -

Sleep comes, somehow.

\- - -

Jade sits up abruptly, startling Hubert from his work ( _the cabinets needed sorting and since he was here_ ). “Jade?” Hubert asks, but Jade is tracking his eyes across the wall in the way only a blade watching their driver approach can, and as Jade’s eyes near the door so too does Hubert hear footsteps.

Incredible! What the hell could Citan possibly want at this time of night?

“Go back to sleep,” Hubert tells Jade, striding towards the door. “I’ll get rid of him.”

He’s got the door open and shut behind him before Jade can protest.

“Is there something you needed?” Hubert asks, once Citan’s close enough to address.

“Just looking for my blade,” Citan responds, politely enough, but it makes Hubert’s ether boil.

“ _Jade_ is asleep.”

“Can you wake him? I need him for something.”

At _this hour,_ Hubert wants to scream, incredulous. He tries not to think too much about the implications of that, because he’s not exactly a fan of them. His mouth twitches with barely restrained anger.

“No,” he says simply.

Citan raises his eyebrows. “No?”

“He is currently in my care, and _I_ decide when he gets to leave.”

Citan idly adjusts the cuff of his sleeve. “I believe as his driver—”

 _Eugh._ “Medical emergencies override driver claims, at least here,” Hubert snaps, grateful for once in his life that Flynn has the military handbook memorized front to back.

“Medical emergency?” Citan repeats. He doesn’t look like he believes it. His smile gets sharp in a way that Hubert has only ever seen Jade’s smile get before. “Hubert, you don’t have to make this difficult,” he says.

“Neither do you,” Hubert retorts. “Unless you have a good reason for needing Jade at _this hour—_ ”

Citan shrugs in defeat. “Fine,” he says. “But I’ll be back to collect him in the morning.”

Hubert holds his tongue, but only just.

When he reenters the infirmary, Jade has moved so he’s sitting sideways on the cot, feet on the floor. Hubert disapproves, but there’s more important things than that.

“ _Architect_ ,” he swears, once the door is shut. “I changed my mind—if you want to kill him now, I’ll cover you.”

“No,” Jade answers. He’s very still, hands in his lap, his eyes following Citan’s path as Citan leaves.

“I mean it!” Hubert insists, gritting his teeth against the cold. Jade is outputting a frankly distressing amount of ether, and it’s _freezing_. “And don’t tell me—I’ve _read_ the note, Jade, I know that—if I’m there with you maybe even—I can make sure the procedure—”

Words fail him several times over. Jade’s attention slowly swings to him, eyes burning red in the low light. He doesn’t say anything.

Hubert swallows the raging sea in his core, trying to not be too rash—bravery is reckless, sometimes, but it is not always stupid. And he remembers what Klaus said, just hours before, about Jade stalling. Is it grief? Is it something else? Does it matter?

“Jade,” Hubert says. “You don’t have a plan, do you?”

Jade doesn’t answer.

“ _Incredible,_ ” Hubert laughs in disbelief. “You _don’t_ have one! No wonder you’re so _stuck_ —”

“Like it’s easy?” Jade interjects. His voice is cold but… toneless. His face blank where Hubert might otherwise expect a bitter smile from him. “Like a blade can really just _leave_ their driver? What option do we have? What precedent has been set for us? And even if there was one, how could we ever remember it?”

That stops Hubert in his tracks. “Jade…” he begins.

“And even if I do—even if I kill him, eat his heart—what is there for me, then?” The slump of Jade’s shoulder is exhausted, his face still expressionless. “Life condemned by a society that hates me for what I would become because I wished to keep my memories and my freedom both. My only option is murder but if I am caught for the crime it is all for naught.”

He keeps talking, deathly still, voice free of both anger and despair even as the speed of his words picks up.

“Surely I could get myself out before anyone discovered what I had done, but am I supposed to leave Klaus and Galea? What of Mythra? Stealing her or breaking the scientists out—if I am caught for either of those things and Citan is already dead then I am also caught for the heart I have eaten and the murder I have obviously done. I will be walking proof of the crime and yet I do not have a choice but to commit it.”

Hubert swallows. It’s becoming clear to him that it isn’t that Jade hasn’t thought about this. Jade’s thought about this perhaps too much, and yet every concern he has brought to the table is a reasonable one.

“Galea has that memory patch…” Hubert whispers.

“I would rather gamble my health than my memories,” Jade answers, neither sharp nor soft, just stating what apparently is a fact. “I have fought too long to simply give up who I am right now.”

Fair.

“You could just… leave,” Hubert suggests, instead.

“I’m sorry?”

“You could just go. You’ll already be on the run with Klaus and Galea, and if the lot of you get somewhere far enough away—far enough that maybe Citan won’t find you—”

Jade interrupts with a laugh, and it is the worst laugh, the ugliest laugh Hubert has ever heard, because it lands at a tone too bright to feel like it belongs in this conversation.

“Don’t,” Jade says, once he is done laughing. “Don’t act like you know more than I do. You have no idea what it’s like to be me.”

“I know what it’s like to be a blade,” Hubert says, somewhat stupidly.

“Yes, of course!” Jade agrees, bright and bitter. “But your driver _actually likes you_.”

It’s like a slap to the face. “I’m sorry—”

“Flynn cares about you. Flynn _respects_ you. He’ll _defer to you_ if you only ask him to! Do you know how often I have looked at you in envy thinking _Architect, if only that were me_.”

“Jade, I get it, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking—”

“Clearly you weren’t.”

The spell suddenly broken, Jade gets to his feet.

“Jade, wait,” Hubert says.

“I’m not staying here,” Jade answers.

“Citan doesn’t expect to see you until morning. I bought you time, the least you could do is _use_ it!”

“Yes, well, I don’t think I’m going to be able to go back to sleep after that.”

“ _Jade_ ,” Hubert says, and takes a deliberate step to block Jade from reaching the door, not that Jade has quite tried to, yet. His core is like a raging sea, unsteady and furious. Jade returns his glare with a look that would probably frighten any other blade, but—bravery is the virtue of being scared and standing your ground anyway, so Hubert isn’t fazed. “Could you at least _try_?”

“Why does it matter so much to you?”

“Because,” Hubert says, “because I have never heard you that honest before in the entire time I have known you. And while I appreciate your honesty, I think that if you see Citan right now you are going to regret it for one reason or another. If you want to sit here all night and make plans instead— _fine._ But I think you need rest. How are you meant to get anything done if you’re running on empty?”

Jade doesn’t say anything, but his expression softens—at least, in that it shifts from _terrifying_ back to _blank,_ which is still frankly disturbing to see on a face that usually emotes so much, masks thrown up to hide his true thoughts.

( _How exhausting is it, Hubert wonders, to spend your whole life lying when your virtue is truth?_ )

“Jade, let me help you,” Hubert pleads.

Jade sits back down. He runs his left hand through his hair, pausing behind his ear for a moment as if he got stuck. He’s still like that for a moment or two… And then he shrugs and shakes his head, clearly for the theatrics of it.

“I suppose I can’t argue with logic like that,” he says. “Good night, Hubert.”

Hubert blinks, surprised that that worked. “G- good night, Jade.”

\- - -

Flynn hesitates, feeling somewhat uncertain about this, but Hubert asked him and. Well, Hubert asked him. The emotion bleed sings—several shades of blue, but there’s a hum that means Hubert’s aware he’s paying attention, and green overtakes them all. Flynn breathes, reassured, and steels his nerves.

He opens the door to core crystal distribution.

“Hello,” he says, still nervous. The clerk looks up from her book. “I was looking to, um, request a blade.”

The clerk stares at him for just long enough Flynn worries he misspoke, but finally she sighs and closes her book. “Did you fill out the paperwork?” she asks.

“Uh, no.”

“Figures.” She starts flicking through papers on her desk.

“Actually… I’d like to request a specific blade?” Flynn says.

The clerk pauses and looks up at him. “Which one?”

“Mythra?”

She stares at him for probably a solid minute. Flynn tries not to fidget, especially as grey overtakes the emotion bleed. Sorry, Hubert, he expected this to be straightforward, too.

“You can’t, she’s on hold,” the clerk says, crisply. “Also, don’t let me hear about anything else concerning what you’re definitely not planning, or I _will_ have to tell someone.”

She returns to her book.

Flynn swallows and heads out. Could have gone worse, he supposes.

\- - -

Jade looks up before the door even opens, hyper-aware of Citan’s presence touching the resonance link as he is.

“Sir?” he asks, confused, as his driver meets his eyes across the room.

“Come on, I need you for something.”

Jade scowls. “I have paperwork to do.”

Citan doesn’t seem bothered.

“Bring it with you, you can multitask.”

“Sir—”

“Clock’s ticking Jade, I have a meeting in five.”

“Surely you don’t need me for a meeting.”

“Maybe I just don’t want to leave you alone.”

_Ah._

A shiver slides down Jade’s neck, but he keeps his back straight as he scoops up a pile of paperwork to bring with him. There’s no point protesting that he has nothing to hide. They both know it’s a lie.

So much for visiting the labs, later.

\- - -

Between all the meetings he’s being forced to attend, and the errands he’s being made to run, Jade isn’t entirely sure how he’s meant to get paperwork done.

Or anything else, for that matter.

\- - -

Citan drags Jade with him to check on Myyah’s progress. Jade tucks his perpetual stack of paperwork to his chest and stands by the doorway, feeling no need to shadow Citan as he pokes around Myyah’s things. Myyah greets Jade when she sees him, and he—he appreciates that, really, but he doesn’t have the energy to respond to her.

( _He’s half-tempted to hunt Hubert down so he can steal another full night’s sleep, but he’s afraid of putting Hubert any more on Citan’s radar than he already is._ )

“Oh, these seem to be coming along well,” Citan says approvingly, as he picks up one of the two core crystals Myyah has on her table. Jade notes the abnormal shape, and that the core is dim. Not ready to resonate yet.

Good.

“I should have them done in another month, I think,” Myyah answers, looking like she wants to pluck the core crystal from Citan’s hands. She tries to meet Jade’s eyes, but he can’t parse whatever it is that she hopes to convey to him. “Maybe two.”

“Try and make it one,” Citan says, handing the core crystal to her.

“The committee gave me clearance for two,” Myyah argues. She clutches the core crystal to her chest. “There’s… something that I’m still missing, something that makes them _Aegises_ and not just blades. The committee thought it worth pursuing.”

“Well, I suppose I can’t argue with the committee,” Citan says. There’s not an edge in his tone, exactly, but there _is_ something in the emotion bleed that sings a little stronger than his usual apathy. “Keep up the good work.”

Citan makes for the door. Myyah catches Jade by the arm.

“Do you need something?” Jade says, somewhat ruffled.

Citan considers them a moment, and then without saying a word, ducks outside, apparently to let them talk. Somehow, that only unsettles Jade more.

“I just…” Myyah says, and then seems to reconsider. She lets go of Jade, but only does that so she can reach up and touch his cheek, seeing as her other hand is occupied with clutching that core crystal. Jade doesn’t quite flinch away from her touch, but he certainly has no idea what to do with it. He raises his eyebrows at her.

“Well,” he says, hoping she’ll get on with it already.

“Are you alright, Jade?” she asks, finally. Her voice is soft, trembling. “You look tired.”

“I’m alright,” he answers. ( _The voice in his head that sounds like Mythra argues that’s debatable._ ) “Really,” he presses, seeing as Myyah doesn’t seem convinced. “I just have a lot of paperwork.”

The edge of Myyah’s concern dulls, a little. “Oh, come on, can’t Citan do some?”

Jade can’t help it. He laughs.

“He’ll mess it up if I let him,” Jade says, “and then I would have to redo it myself. Better save us both the hassle.”

Myyah bites her lip, and finally lowers her hand from Jade’s face.

“I suppose…”

“I need to go,” Jade says, which might be a coward’s tactic, but there’s nothing for him here if he lets Myyah keep talking. “Good luck with your work.”

He ducks out of the room. Citan sends him a wry look.

“I’m that bad with paperwork, am I?” he asks. “I suppose it’s a good thing I have you to do it for me, then.”

Jade smiles back, sharp. “Of course. You’d be hopeless otherwise, wouldn’t you?”

Citan laughs. It’s amused, almost fond. Jade kills the joy that sings in his core.

\- - -

“Oh good,” Klaus says, slumping with visible relief.

“What’s that?” Galea asks, looking up at him. He’s holding papers in his hands.

“Committee approved our request for more time,” Klaus says. “On the condition we,” here, his voice gets the quality that one gets when reading something word for word, “submit weekly reports with as much detail as possible… Oh.” He grimaces and finishes: “Regarding our progress and procedure both.”

“Oh,” Galea echoes, because that sounds like an official request to make a how-to-create-artificial-blades-for-dummies pamphlet.

“Not great,” Klaus says.

“Not great,” Galea agrees. Her eyes drift to the edge of Klaus’ desk, where a dormant core crystal sits, more finished than the committee knows about. At least they won’t have to hand over another child directly to the committee if things go to plan, but…

Well, there was never stopping the entirety of their research from reaching committee hands, Galea supposes. They’ve been handing it over since the project began. Any determined scientist could pick up where they left off.

“We bought time,” Galea says, trying to keep her voice steady. “That’s what matters.”

Whatever Klaus intends to say in answer is interrupted by the labs’ door opening.

“It’s us!” calls Hubert, and Galea rises from her desk to go greet him in the kitchen, a step behind Klaus.

“Here you are,” Flynn says, delicately, dropping the pile of things he was carrying on the table. They’re military grade rations specifically designed for travel, Galea realizes, as she approaches for a closer look. “It should be enough for a few days—enough to reach the next town over, I believe.”

“Right,” Klaus answers, both looking and sounding much like Galea feels. Neither of them really considered at length what they would have to do once they got _off_ base, so they are both grateful that Hubert and Flynn are handling it while simultaneously embarrassed they didn’t think of it to begin with. “Thank you.”

Flynn smiles. “Not a problem.”

He seems happy enough to be helping, and the fact that Hubert looks flustered is probably enough proof that Flynn is extremely genuine. Still, it makes Galea worry—this is a lot Flynn in particular is doing for them. And his risks are much greater than theirs are, especially given the fact that he has every reason not to take them, to sit by and let this happen and himself remain unaffected.

“Flynn,” she says, not sure where else to start. “Are you sure about this? You don’t have to help us.”

“I really do,” Flynn insists, his face slowly scrunching up like he doesn’t quite understand why she’d suggest otherwise. “It was unjust to lock you up like this, and it would be unjust to leave you here. I’m tired of sitting by.” And then his expression breaks up into something lighter, and he turns to Hubert. “Besides, Hubert asked.”

Hubert shoves a hand to his face likely in attempts to hide his blush. “I asked _because_ I knew you felt like this, you know,” he protests, valiantly keeping his voice at its normal octave.

“Either way, I’m glad you trusted me,” Flynn says.

Hubert makes some kind of indiscriminate noise. Galea stifles a laugh.

“We appreciate the help, regardless,” she tells them.

“What else do we need?” Klaus asks.

Hubert fixes his glasses and clears his throat, cheeks still glowing with the remnants of his blush. Galea politely ignores it. “A way out,” Hubert says. “We may be understaffed, but there’s still guards at the door to the labs, and guards at every exit, and any personnel who sees you on the way out will be suspicious, perhaps even raising the alarm. I was hoping Jade would have a route in mind, but talking to him has proved… difficult.”

He doesn’t say Citan’s keeping Jade on a short leash, but it’s the sense Galea gets. Her stomach churns.

“I’ll do what I can to stake it out, since I don’t have much of a job myself,” Flynn offers. “Being a healer’s driver is fairly low-demand. Otherwise, I suggest a distraction when the time comes.”

Hubert sighs. “Not this again.”

“It would keep eyes off of us,” Flynn argues. “We just need to come up with something that causes minimal damage.”

“Once again I am not strong enough to flood any portion of the base and even if I was, they would know it was me,” Hubert says.

“Sounds like you’ve had this argument before,” Klaus laughs.

“ _We keep having it,_ ” Hubert moans.

“Well, I would prefer not to resort to arson for obvious reasons,” Flynn protests. “And if you are absent for some kind of faked medical emergency, it will be very suspicious.” At Hubert’s glare, Flynn sighs. “We’ll keep working on it.”

“If we have any ideas, we’ll let you know,” Galea assures them.

“I could definitely get you the means to explode something,” Klaus adds. “But that doesn’t exactly fall under ‘minimal damage’.”

“A little property damage might be alright,” Flynn says, with consideration.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Hubert interjects, “what about that blade you two were creating? How are they coming along?”

“He’s almost done,” Klaus answers.

“A few days,” Galea agrees.

“And the committee won’t be asking for him for months,” Klaus adds. “The sooner we leave the better, of course, but you aren’t waiting on us.”

“No, we’re waiting on Jade.” Hubert sighs. And then he makes a face, soft and somewhat pained. “I’ll try and talk to him again,” he says, and leaves it at that.

\- - -

Hubert cannot talk to Jade.

He cannot get Jade alone.

The most he manages in weeks is a brief conversation, passing in the hallways—

“Jade! How are you?”

“Tired.”

—and then Citan not-so-discreetly clears his throat and Jade trails after his driver.

Hubert would kill the man himself if he didn’t think Jade would hate him for it.

( _He already tried once._

 _He’s not stupid enough to try it a second time._ )

\- - -

Jade doesn’t get much sleep.

He doesn’t get much work done, either.

When Citan complains about his pace, all he can do is snap that he hasn’t exactly had a moment to _actually work,_ but Citan only grimaces and lets the matter drop. The resonance sits around Jade’s neck like a leash—or maybe a noose—and it’s not getting any looser.

The worst part is that if Citan intends to kill Jade via exhaustion alone…

…he just might be succeeding.

\- - -

Klaus and Galea finish their fourth child, their second son.

They settle on the name Alvis, though they’ll have to workshop it with him when they wake him.

They write their reports, just to keep buying time.

\- - -

Flynn figures out a route.

\- - -

Myyah puts the finishing touches on her artificial Aegises.

( _She tries to resonate with them, with even just one of them, just so that she’ll have one child who’s fate she has complete and total control over—_

_But ether deficiency is a bitch,_

_And neither resonance takes._ )

\- - -

Citan moves his plans up.

\- - -

“Jade,” Citan says.

Jade looks up. The resonance is tight. A pit that sits in his gut.

“Pack your things,” Citan says. “We’re taking a trip.”

“Pardon?” Jade says, staring past the mountain of paperwork on his desk. Early morning is about the only time he has to work on it. “Surely I did not just hear you suggest I abandon the paperwork that _you_ want done by the end of the week to _take a trip._ ”

“Myyah submitted her report saying she thinks her Aegises are finished, which means someone has to check the cannons,” Citan explains. “I volunteered us.”

“You _volunteered_ ,” Jade repeats, about to laugh, because Citan has never volunteered himself for anything—

_Oh._

Cold terror grips Jade suddenly and strongly. It’s the clearest emotion he can remember feeling for months. It’s—the resonance with Mythra snapping in his chest. It’s his room on fire, his contingencies turned to ash. It is a death sentence.

“No,” Jade says.

“ _No_?” Citan asks, his tone and the tightening of the resonance dangerous, but Jade pushes his goddamn luck.

( _you should just shove your spear through his gut instead,_ )

“No,” Jade repeats. “Once again, you want all this paperwork done by the end of the week. It’s—what? A three day trip, there and back? I can’t very well do paperwork on the road, and I won’t be able to finish it all before the deadline once we’re back.”

“I could always pick up your slack,” Citan offers.

( _yeah because he’ll KILL you_ )

Jade swallows. His core trembles.

“I mean if you want the committee to make you redo it, then by all means,” Jade says, plastering a smile on his lips. All he tastes is fear. “We both know it’ll be faster if you let me handle it.”

“So you’ll leave your driver to face monsters in the wilderness alone, instead?” Citan asks.

“You don’t need me to fight monsters,” Jade counters. “Take your sword—I know you have one. And if that’s too much effort for you, I’m sure command can spare a soldier or two to accompany you instead.”

“You’re really insisting on staying?”

“I am, in fact.”

Citan stares at him. Jade stares back. He doesn’t reach for his ether because that would be too obvious, but he keeps his attention on it, anyway, because he dare not let Citan draw first.

If, he resolves. If Citan does not budge. Then the deed, the necessity, the murder—it can be done on the very road Citan intends to strike him down on. But if he can have that time, if he can _loosen the noose around his neck,_ he will take it.

Architect, will he take it.

“…that paperwork better be done by the time I get back,” Citan says.

He leaves.

Jade breathes.

\- - -

It’s funny, actually.

How much clearer he thinks when he’s terrified.

\- - -

Jade hesitates when he enters the labs, a half-step missed, because Hubert _and_ Flynn are gathered around the table with Klaus and Galea. Well. That makes Jade’s job easier, he supposes. He continues his stride into the labs and slaps the paperwork he brought with him on the table.

“Citan will be gone for three days,” Jade declares. He has the floor, he might as well use it. “We’ll need to make a move.”

“Just like that?” Hubert says, sounding somewhat annoyed, for some reason. Flynn levels him a look but doesn’t exactly say anything. Jade stops watching and sits down to do some of the paperwork. It’s not like he hasn’t multitasked before.

“Why the paperwork, then?” Klaus asks, and he says it in a cadence that makes Jade think for a second _that’s where Mythra got it from, isn’t it,_ and then stop thinking at all for how much his core aches.

( _Soon, he promises himself, but cannot really process._

 _Soon, Mythra. Soon._ )

“Because I would like to have a safety net in case things fall apart,” Jade finds his mouth saying. “Ignore the paperwork. Tell me what we still need to do.”

They tell him. The west exit, Flynn discovered, is less heavily guarded—makes sense, Jade realizes, considering that’s the part of base that’s mostly rubble, now. The exit itself would be the largest hangup, unlike other routes. Flynn and Klaus have also been working to place slightly-miscalibrated ether furnaces on the opposite side of base ( _in that Klaus makes them and Flynn places them_ ), piled up somewhere that would cause quite a distraction were they all to misfire at once, which is, of course, the intention.

“Really going all out for this last attempt, are we?” Jade comments.

“I had spare time on my hands, once we finished Alvis,” Klaus answers, with a grin that splits his face. He sits across the table from Jade. “Besides, it wasn’t _my_ idea.”

“It was mine,” Flynn answers, at the same moment Hubert answers: “It was _Flynn’s_.”

Flynn seems to be stating a fact. Hubert looks either exasperated or embarrassed.

“Flynn will still need to set them off, of course,” Klaus says, “but if _you’re_ here to escort us out, Jade, I don’t see that being an issue.”

“Hubert and Flynn have more to lose than the rest of us, anyway,” Galea adds.

“We really don’t,” Hubert and Flynn answer, in unison. Flynn smiles. Hubert sends him an annoyed look.

Jade simply does not have the brain power right now to process all of that, and so long as he has enough to actually focus on getting out of this hellhole, he doesn’t intend to make attempts to change that. So rather than thinking about how close Hubert and Flynn really are, or the fact these two perfectly sensible people are being completely insensible and throwing their lots in with the _soon-to-be-convicts_ , of all people, Jade simply doesn’t. Instead he tells everyone to carry on relaying their plans.

There isn’t much else. Alvis—the blade—is ready to be awoken whenever, though they’re putting it off because awakening a blade gives off a distinct enough flare in the ambient ether that any blade on base could pick it up, and they don’t want to show their hand early. Bags are packed. Rations have been gathered. Transportation has at least been considered.

“I’m beginning to think you didn’t even need me,” Jade laughs, when they have finished.

“Untrue,” Klaus argues.

“It’s not like we would have left without you,” Galea insists.

Jade recognizes that this is his own gambit used against him, and has to appreciate Galea’s nerve, even if he can’t appreciate much else at the moment.

“What about Myyah?” Flynn asks, saving Jade from needing to respond. “I know we’ve discussed her already, but I want to make sure we’re all on the same page.” His face hardens, resolute. “I am not comfortable leaving her here for no good reason, but if we really cannot save all of you now that you’ve been separated…” He trails off.

Jade sighs. Myyah was low on his list of priorities—she’s at least not in danger of being _killed_ anytime soon. He doesn’t have an answer about her.

“I’m more worried about her _work,_ ” Galea counters. “Has she finished any Aegis prototypes? Not that I want to bite off more than we can chew…”

“I can’t stomach the thought of any blade being made to be a living battery for a war machine we’re better off without,” Klaus continues, where Galea leaves off.

Neither can Jade, frankly, but… They will never get out of here if they take even one artificial Aegis with them, let alone both. Besides, if Citan knows about them, that means Myyah has probably already handed them over to the committee. Maybe Jade could pull off that theft if he killed Citan first, and didn’t have a pair of scientists to smuggle out, but they are doing this while Citan is too far away to kill, and he does, in fact, have a pair of scientists that need smuggling out. So.

“If Myyah’s Aegises are finished, I’m unaware of it,” Jade lies. “I can see about Myyah herself, but that will depend on her.”

Flynn purses his lips, but doesn’t argue. Klaus and Galea buy his lie, which is what really matters.

“What about Mythra?” Hubert asks.

“I know she’s in storage somewhere, and it won’t be hard to break in and dig her out,” Jade answers. Of course he has no idea what the filing system for core crystals looks like, but he’s confident that he’s familiar enough with her ether signature that it won’t matter, even if he _does_ have to pick up every core crystal to check.

“That’s a lot of places you’re trying to be at once, Jade,” Hubert sighs. “But if you get Klaus and Galea partway, you can pass them off to me, and then go find Mythra. Flynn can always—”

“Myyah’s on the way,” Jade interjects. “Besides, she’s not in danger like Klaus and Galea are, and no one will try and stop her movement through the base, even if they might stop her leaving. I know three pairs of eyes on Klaus and Galea seems a tad cautious, but if we don’t get them out now, we don’t get them out at all.”

“You don’t fight well in crowds anyway, Hubert,” Flynn cautions, gently.

Hubert turns up his nose. “It shouldn’t come to that, but fine,” he relents. “What about Citan?” he asks.

It makes Jade still, his core going cold, as if he had not made the decision the moment Citan walked into his room this morning, as if there was any backing out _now_.

“Getting Klaus and Galea out still takes priority,” he says, aware his voice is distant. “We may have to split up once we’re out, but I should be able to rejoin you at—where are we heading, after we get out? I’m sure the lot of you have figured that out already, seeing as you figured everything else out.” He looks to Flynn and Hubert, since they would have the answers.

“Hillsboro is closer,” Flynn answers, with a tight mouth. “But the Tethe’allan military has a large presence there…”

He doesn’t need to finish the sentence. “Theswich, then,” Jade says, with certainty.

“That’s what we were thinking, yes,” Flynn agrees.

“Then I will do what I can to meet up with you there, once I have taken care of Citan.” Is that a lie? Is that the truth? Jade hasn’t decided what he’s doing, yet. It would sting, to see Mythra awakened by Galea and then part with her—

( _as if Mythra would let him hunt down Citan alone, he realizes_ )

Well, that’s a bridge that can be crossed when he gets to it.

“It looks like we have everything figured out, otherwise,” Jade says, leaning back in his chair and taking stock of the group—twice bigger than he had ever considered attempting this with. Flynn and Hubert look determined, prepared. Klaus and Galea look a little nervous.

“What… time do we leave?” Klaus asks.

“Guard density is the same at all hours,” Flynn says.

“But night has the advantage of almost everyone who isn't a guard being asleep,” Hubert finishes. “And so long as Jade and I—and Alvis, when he wakes—keep our ether lines covered, visibility on us at night will be low, too.”

“Makes sense,” Klaus agrees, though he doesn’t exactly look thrilled. Or maybe reality is just catching up to him.

“4 A.M. should work best,” Jade decides. That gives them at least an hour before the early-risers start moving, and two before the base itself starts churning with life. And it means they’ll travel only an hour or so in darkness before the sun begins to rise. Never mind that waiting will put Citan even further away from them, which will be good.

“We should all get some sleep beforehand,” Hubert says, hefting a weighty look at Jade. “You, especially.”

“It’s still early in the day,” Jade protests.

“Last minute prep to get done, first,” Galea agrees. She too fixes Jade with a look that’s weighty in a different way. “You said you’d touch base with Myyah, right?”

“Right,” Jade agrees. “So I guess I’ll do that now.”

He almost takes the paperwork with him, when he gets to his feet. He remembers not to.

\- - -

What Jade first discovers, when he goes to touch base with Myyah, is she has not, in fact, turned her Aegises over to the committee or anyone, yet. They sit on her desk, dormant, but notably featuring a core crystal shape too distinct to be anything other than Aegises.

This shakes Jade’s plans a few times over. He stalls with the decision.

( _though frankly it has already been made_ )

“Myyah,” he greets.

“Jade,” she greets in return.

He tells her the plan—as much of it as he dares, anyway, which is mostly that they are leaving and what time she will need to be prepared to go. He dare not trust her and her loose tongue with anything more.

“Good,” she says, looking relieved. Her fingers trace the edge of her desk, by the dormant core crystals she stares longingly at, but doesn’t touch. “That means I’ll be able to get them out of here after all…”

Jade hesitates less than he would like to pretend he did.

“I suppose so.”

It paints a target on their backs, but then: Jade could not in good conscience just _leave_ them here, not when it was _this easy._ Even he is not so cold.

“Should someone resonate with them?” Myyah asks, lifting her eyes to Jade in question. “That would make them harder to steal from _us_ —”

“It would also announce to everyone in fifty miles that we woke them,” Jade interrupts. “It will be safer to wait until we’re somewhere quiet, far away from here.”

Myyah looks sad, but she nods. “That makes sense,” she agrees. She fixes Jade with a smile he can’t quite read. “Thank you.”

Jade takes that and tucks it away.

Whatever it is it makes him feel he doesn’t have the space to figure out, right now.

\- - -

He packs a bag to put in the labs, rather than forcing himself to make one more stop by his room on the way out later. It’s just a few changes of clothes to hide the cash between, truthfully. It’s not like he has anything else.

\- - -

He doesn’t tell Klaus and Galea about the Aegises they’ll be smuggling out. The less talk, the more chances they have of getting out of here long before anyone realizes what they took with them.

\- - -

“It occurred to me,” Klaus says, approaching Jade in the kitchen, “that if Citan is going to be gone for several days, we _could_ give you the memory patch.”

“And tip Citan off to the fact we’re up to something?” Jade scoffs. “It’s almost like you want him to turn around and come back.”

Klaus rolls his eyes. “I mean, it could wait until right before we leave. A little bit of insurance.”

“We’ll have to wake sooner than planned.”

“Fine by me, if you want it done.”

Jade hesitates. The insurance could be nice…

“Plan on getting up early,” he tells Klaus. “I’ll have made up my mind by morning.”

\- - -

He sleeps in the labs, that night.

It’s the best he’s slept since Mythra died.

( _soon soon soon soon soon_ )

\- - -

The first thing Jade thinks when he wakes up is:

_Hm. Wasn’t Citan much further away than that?_

And then he processes that not only is the distance between him and his driver so small that Citan could easily be back on base within the hour, that distance is also _decreasing._ Panic touches Jade like a live wire, making him bolt to his feet. He thinks—he thinks they have time. They will be cutting it close, but… They don’t have another choice.

( _It’s Jade or Citan, today._

 _Jade tries not to think about it._ )

Thankfully Klaus is sitting at the kitchen table, already awake—or, based on the cup of coffee he’s nursing, hasn’t slept. Jade doesn’t have time to care about that, right now.

Whatever Klaus was going to say dies in his throat when he sees Jade. “Something wrong?” he manages.

“I need you to wake Galea—and Alvis.”

“Uh, sure—”

“Citan’s on his way back.”

“ _Oh._ ”

Klaus doesn’t quite drop the coffee mug, but it’s a near thing. He gets to his feet, stumbling.

“I’ll tell Hubert,” Jade says, and makes for the door.

\- - -

Hubert’s also awake. Convenient, but it makes Jade shoot him a look that they probably don’t have time for.

Apparently reading what’s on Jade’s mind, Hubert answers: “Oh don’t give me that look, I napped earlier, and unlike _you,_ my sleep schedule is regular enough that if I miss a night it won’t kill me.” And before Jade can quite quip back ( _fair enough, now really isn’t the time_ ), Hubert says: “Aren’t you a little early?”

“Citan’s on his way back,” Jade explains. And then amends: “We have less than an hour, I think.” Maybe less than that. The distance is getting smaller, and smaller. Citan could be on base in minutes.

“…give Flynn ten minutes,” Hubert says, face darkening. “I’ll see if I can get him up in less than five, but he’ll need five to get the distraction set. You can move before then if you want, but that’s your call.”

It’s a call Jade will think sincerely about making, but for now he shares a nod with Hubert, each of them understanding their respective tasks, and returns to the labs.

\- - -

The soldiers guarding the lab, he kills.

There’s no getting around that, not on this tight of a schedule.

\- - -

Alvis is awake when Jade returns—which he knew, because he felt the flare of ether while he was walking. Hopefully if anyone else felt it, they aren’t going to investigate.

Alvis takes after his mother in more ways than it should really be possible for an artificial blade with no genetic relation to his parents. Their skin is the same brown, their hair the same silver, their eyes the same grey. The core crystal in his collarbone is red—a few shades darker than Jade’s—and his ether lines and such are already hidden by a blue coat and white pants. Alvis turns toward Jade before anyone else, when he enters, a smile set on his lips that might be called knowing.

“We ready?” Jade asks, joining them where they gather around the kitchen table.

“I think so,” Galea says, shouldering her bag. Klaus echoes the movement.

“Just so you are aware, Jade,” Alvis says, “I have Foresight significantly stronger than Mythra does. And, yes, we will have enough time to get out of here.”

He’s said that before Jade can even really process it. If Jade were not seriously questioning whether or not Alvis was lying to him, he might have the patience for a little dramatics. Instead he just says: “Do we actually get out of here, then?”

The expression on Alvis’ face doesn’t shift. “The future is not set in stone, and there are many paths it could take,” he answers. “There are futures where we do, and there are futures where we don’t. What matters is we _do_ have enough time to pull this off.” His eyes fix on Jade’s, as if sensing Jade’s doubt. Jade holds his face very still.

( _he tries not to think about the rapidly closing distance between him and Citan, though it’s hard to ignore_

 _and yet, he doubts a newborn blade would have any reason to lie to him_ )

There’s a sudden flare of ether, a slight rumbling through the base.

“That would be our cue,” Alvis declares, before Jade can open his mouth. His eyes glint with some kind of glee. “Shall we?”

Jade picks his bag up off the table, and moves.

\- - -

The stack of ether furnaces, when detonated, causes an explosion slightly larger than Klaus calculated. They also blow a sizeable hole in the east wall of the base.

Oh, it’s not a _gigantic_ hole, but it’s certainly large enough for one person to slip in without much trouble. And lucky enough for one Sylvaranti thief, they were right on the other side of the wall when the explosion went off, and were able to slip in quite before anyone showed up to investigate the scene.

Getting out might be more of a problem, but first they have to obtain their targets.

\- - -

Either the distraction or the route plays in their favor—Jade doesn’t have to worry about any guards, or employees.

All he has to worry about is trying to thread his way through the hallways in such a fashion that Citan isn’t going to cut them off, but it’s a fool’s errand.

Citan’s presence sings like a gong on his perception. It’s the same in reverse.

When Alvis said they’d have enough time, he’d assumed that meant he would have at least passed Klaus and Galea off before this.

He comes to a stop.

“Jade?” Galea asks, but he barely hears.

( _incredibly, now that it’s down to the wire_

 _he doesn’t feel scared at all_ )

Citan rounds the corner into view. Jade summons his spear. His mind is clear, his core steady. He shrugs his bag off of his shoulder and drops it into the hand Alvis already had waiting for it.

Alvis shepherds his parents down the hallway behind Jade—splitting sooner than intended, but the plan still well underway. Citan closes the distance between himself and his blade, the usual click of his heels against the floor offset slightly by the clatter of his sword at his hip. The hallway is otherwise silent.

The resonance hums between them, harsh, tight.

“Honestly, Jade, I’m disappointed,” Citan says, in the exact kind of tone someone might use to scold a dog for pissing on the couch again. “Did you _really_ think I didn’t know you were up to something? That had to have been the sloppiest ploy for time I’ve seen from you yet.”

Spear held loosely at his side, Jade fixes his glasses with his free hand.

“Really? Because I can’t say I remember doing anything like this before,” he counters, sharp.

Citan laughs, mostly to himself. “No,” he agrees, “you wouldn’t.”

All but a confession.

Jade bites his tongue. Breathes through his nose. Trembles with his anger.

Smiles.

“Is that so?” he asks, keeping his eyes on Citan’s face, but his attention firmly fixed on the sword at Citan’s hip. Citan hasn’t moved to draw, but Jade knows his driver is significantly faster than he wants people to think he is, and the fact Citan’s posture suggests they’re only discussing the weather means precisely nothing.

Citan shrugs. “No sense keeping it a secret at this point, I suppose. You were already well aware, weren’t you? You have been for a while.” Which, is more of a confession than Jade was honestly expecting from him.

No sense lying, now.

“Only took you rifling through my things to figure that one out,” Jade counters.

Citan chuckles, just a little, shaking his head. “No, I think I’ve known for a while that you suspected. You’re smart, Jade, is the thing. Why do you think, out of all the blades I have driven in my life, _you_ were the one I kept?”

That stings, somewhere Jade doesn't know how to define. He deflects, instead.

“I assume it wasn’t just my shining sense of humor.”

“Oh, no, that was plenty of it,” Citan says, and at the praise Jade wants to vomit. He should—end it, here, he should, but his core craves the truth after all these years, and _Citan keeps talking._ “But honestly, the best part of driving you is that I don’t get bored. It’s fun being three steps ahead of you, because you don’t make it easy. The others could never play a long game.”

The others, _how many others,_ is a thought that takes root in Jade’s mind and festers there. To have murdered Jade thrice is horrid enough, but the thought that Citan had _other blades_ before him—had murdered them as well—no, _no_ , enough. This is not a path Jade can afford to go down right now.

He only asks the next question to keep Citan distracted for a moment so he can work. “How many blades did it take to get to me? I’m curious.”

“You won’t remember the answer.”

Fury slides down Jade’s throat.

“No harm in telling me, then,” he says, sharp, and channels his rage into the ambient ether. Thanks to the weather this time of year, it’s already cold, and it’s already humid, so it’s no effort at all to command the water particles in the air to _freeze_. Nothing too fancy. Just enough to seal Citan’s sword in its sheath with a solid chunk of ice.

“You’re just stalling.”

“I suppose I am.”

Jade hefts his spear, his feet sliding into a solid stance to balance himself.

Citan laughs as soon as he sees it.

“What are you even _doing_?” he asks, as if he couldn’t find this any more hilarious. “Honestly, Jade, you’re smarter than this. What do you gain by killing me? If I die, so do you.”

“Oh no, I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” Jade says, and when he smiles, it is sharp and genuine. “The only one who will be dying here today is you, Citan.”

A layer of ice crystallizes over the ground behind Citan. Jade lunges.

It happens fast. Citan takes a step back, instantly loses his footing. To say that Jade’s core did anything other than sing with deep satisfaction would be to lie, and he is tired of lying. Relishing in every second of this, Jade reaches out and catches Citan by the collar of his shirt, holding him upright so he does not bash his head against the ground.

Jade has never smiled wider.

“I have to admit,” he says, as he takes in the sight of Citan—glasses askew and staring wide-eyed and startled up at him— “I much prefer the view of you like this.”

Citan’s hands move to unsheathe his sword, finds he cannot, and in that moment Jade brings his spear down. He buries it in Citan’s left hip, as deep as he can, slow and twisting and painful. He drinks in the way Citan arches away from him, the way Citan bites his tongue so he does not scream, drinks it in and smiles all the wider.

“Well,” Citan says, after a moment, labored but chuckling. “Congratulations, Jade. I suppose you finally outplayed me.” He smirks, infuriatingly serene. “Do you want to know how many lifetimes it took you?”

Jade’s satisfaction snaps, for a moment, smile faltering. He plasters it back on.

“I counted one—” he pulls his spear out, plunges it into a different section of Citan’s flesh, “—two—” out, and in again, “— _three._ ” He smiles, cocks his head to the side in question, as Citan trembles and coughs, beginning to choke on his own blood. “Am I missing any?”

It takes Citan a second to find his voice around the blood in his throat, but he laughs even as he coughs. “Honestly? I wasn’t even counting.”

Like it didn’t even matter. Like it was just an inconvenience. Like he couldn’t even be bothered to take satisfaction in the evil he was committing like a decent villain. Jade hates him for that all the more.

“Then,” Jade says, smile tight and vision blurring with his anger. “In case I missed a few—”

He pulls his spear out and plunges it in again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And—

An ether link snaps, breaking Jade out of his trance.

Thankfully, though Jade’s work has left a bloody mess in place of Citan’s abdomen, he didn’t slip up enough to have harmed the one part of Citan he needs to remain whole. He lets go of Citan’s shirt and lets him fall gracelessly onto the ground. Steady hands, now. He only gets one chance at this, and he doesn’t have much time.

Gripping his spear at the base of the blade, he sets about carving Citan’s heart out of his chest.

\- - -

In that instant, it begins to snow.

\- - -

An alarm begins to blare, somewhere.

Galea almost staggers to a halt in her surprise and her fear, but Alvis’ hand finds her wrist and pulls her forward.

“What’s—”

“Not us,” Alvis assures her, with a certainty that Galea appreciates but still is not used to. “Keep moving.”

“Is it—Jade?” Klaus asks, which is the other question that was plaguing Galea. “Is he—”

“Jade is fine,” Alvis tells them. “Trust me, Jade is fine.”

They keep moving.

\- - -

Jade is fine, actually. He’s doing just fine. Still rolling the dice on how long that’s going to last, but he shelves the problem of his health for later. He feels fine enough to move, now, and keep moving he has to. He trusts Klaus and Galea in Flynn and Hubert’s hands, but there is still the problem of Myyah, and Mythra. He only wishes he had the time to change his shirt.

The base ( _he finds when he briefly goes outside, because this route is more direct than winding through the hallways_ ) is in uproar, for a reason that Jade is not certain of but prays doesn’t have to do with him. There are several inches of snow on the ground, as well—his fault, presumably, but he finds himself smiling at the thought. He finds himself smiling a lot, actually.

The rope at his neck snapped, before it choked him. A weight, lifted from his shoulders.

It doesn’t entirely feel real, though. Isn’t that funny? Citan is dead and yet a part of Jade keeps running his fingers over the lack of a resonance in his mind, just to feel Citan’s absence, _just_ to make sure. Like perhaps Citan isn’t actually dead, even though Jade’s arms still ache from the force of the killing blow, even though the heart beating steadily, merrily in Jade’s chest make it hard to deny the fact that Citan is _very_ dead. It’s almost dreamlike, after a fashion—

A sudden, blaring alarm distracts Jade from his thoughts.

 _Southern quadrant_ , the shouts around him explain.

_Unidentified intruder._

_Cannot be allowed to escape with the core crystals they carry._

Core crystals, Jade thinks to himself, confused. Then the pieces click together in his head, not quite certain, but somewhat damning. What core crystals are worth stealing, on this base? Who would they wake every soldier for?

His new heart leaping into his throat, Jade runs to check on Myyah.

\- - -

“Shit shit _shit_ ,” the thief swears. It had _not_ been snowing when they went inside, but _now_ it is, and by all accounts that patch of water should _not_ have turned to ice after what can’t have been more than five minutes of snow. Who can blame them for tripping and falling on their ass, huh?

They push themself up to assess the damage. Alarms are still blaring. The chatter of soldiers, the clamor of their footsteps; it’s incessant. The thief checks their bag—

It’s come open, and one of the core crystals has skidded across the ice and well out of reach.

They hop to their feet. They keep one hand buried in their bag, gripped around the core crystal that didn’t slip away from them, just to make sure they don’t lose it. ( _And wishing not for the first time that they could resonate with blades—but that they can’t is precisely why they were hired, isn’t it?_ )

They assess the situation. Soldiers are coming much closer, now. They might be able to grab the core crystal they dropped, but if they’re even a second too slow, their escape route will be blocked off.

Fuck it, one of two will have to be enough.

The thief leaves the core crystal in the snow and bolts.

\- - -

Myyah takes a shuddering, gasping breath, her lungs filling with air even though by all accounts they shouldn’t have been able to again. It’s a moment before her kickstarted heart has pumped enough blood for her brain to process what is going on, exactly. She’s alive. How is she alive? There was—

_Her children._

She throws herself upright, and is immediately caught by cold hands.

“Careful there,” warns—Jade, his voice gentle, concerned. “I wouldn’t push myself, if I were you.”

“Where’s—” Myyah gasps, ignoring Jade’s protests, using him as leverage to get to her feet, though her head is spinning too much and all it grants her is getting halfway there and then falling to her knees, Jade still steadying her with his hands on her arms. “The- the _Aegises_ —” she gasps out. “Where are—”

There was a thief, are the words she can’t say. There was a thief, who accosted her and then _murdered her_ and—there her bag is, contents emptied, strewn across the floor. Her eyes lock on the sight, feeling kind of numb. She thinks about moving, just to make sure the core crystals aren’t hidden behind wayward clothes. Jade beats her to it, following her line of sight and then getting up and checking himself. Without him to support her, Myyah collapses again, has to catch her weight on outstretched arms so she doesn’t fall flat on her face.

Jade toes the contents of Myyah’s bag around, bends down to shake out a few shirts. “They aren’t here,” he declares. “I heard something about the thief being chased down on my way over, but I was more concerned with finding you than chasing them down myself. And it’s a good thing I did.” He sends a look at her, eyebrows raised meaningfully.

Right. Right. She did—did she not die? She certainly remembers being stabbed—

“Are you alright?” Jade asks, crossing the distance to her, helping her steady herself again.

“Thanks,” she answers, distractedly. He seems intent on studying her, but Myyah really, properly, takes Jade in right now. He’s covered in blood. It smells kind of fresh. His clothes are ruined. His hands where they meet her skin are somewhat sticky. And it obviously cannot be _Jade’s_ blood, because blades bleed ether, and ether evaporates the moment it hits air. A part of Myyah thinks maybe she should be repulsed, but concern wins out over that one as she peers towards him, studying his face.

“Jade… what happened to you?” she asks, reaching up to brush hair out of his eyes and tuck it behind his ear. He responds to the touch much like a stone would, but he doesn’t pull away, either.

“Me? Oh, don’t worry about me. I’m just fine,” he assures her.

Something about his tone makes Myyah want to press, but—that smile _is_ the most genuine smile she’s seen on his face in months. Maybe the most genuine smile she’s seen on his face, _ever._ It actually reaches his eyes, and looks relaxed, relieved, like a huge weight has been lifted from his shoulders. Curious, unwilling to go without _any_ answers, and having a hunch, Myyah rests her hand over his chest, right where humans keep their hearts.

She’d expected the heartbeat, but actually _feeling_ it makes her jump a little.

“Jade…” she begins.

He shakes his head, still smiling. “Really, I don’t need you fussing,” he insists, something just short of an edge in his tone. “I’m _fine._ More importantly, Myyah, how are you? I’m honestly not sure that should have worked.”

“What worked?” Myyah repeats, confused, and then reaches up to touch what he’s staring at on her chest. Feeling the smooth hardness of a core crystal instead of the soft give of skin makes her jump again. She looks down to examine it properly, for the first time noting her open shirt and the fact she too is covered in blood. ( _How much of the blood on Jade’s hands right now is hers, actually?_ ) The core crystal—orange, too small to be a full one—is nestled next to her heart.

“Oh,” she says.

“Oh?” Jade asks, like he’d expected a little more from her.

“How is this…” Myyah begins, but gets distracted. She _recognizes_ that orange. “Is this Poppi’s? Where did you—”

“It was in your desk drawer. Don’t tell me you’re _upset_.”

“I…” Myyah fidgets a little where she sits, pushing Jade’s hands off of her as she does so, scowling. “No,” she insists. There’s a tug in her gut, but it’s fine. “No, I’m just… What did you _do?_ How did this _work_?”

“Honestly, I wasn’t entirely certain it would,” Jade admits. “But there were theories I read—ages ago—mentions of blade eaters; the reverse to flesh eaters. The research was sparse, but… I thought it was worth a try.”

“I… I suppose otherwise I’d be dead,” Myyah agrees, the thought winding her. She can’t really blame Jade for trying, if that’s how he found her. She can’t even blame him for using a shard of Poppi’s core crystal to do it. Even more winding is the distinct concern Jade is treating her with. She smiles at him as warmly as she can. “Thank you.”

“I’m just glad it worked,” he deflects.

Myyah laughs and shakes her head, fond. She sets about buttoning her shirt back up, and finds that she’s trembling just enough that it makes the buttons hard. She supposes dying and then coming back to life will do that to a person.

Imagine that. Her, cheating death!

“We should get going,” Jade says.

“Going?” Myyah repeats, looking up at him.

“Wasn’t that the plan?” Jade asks, eyebrows raised. “I don’t see how you nearly dying changes that. In fact, it might make you easier to get out of here. Everyone’s so focused on the thief that I doubt they’ll be worried about us.”

“That’s—” He has a point, but. “What about—” _my children,_ “What about the Aegises? Can’t we try and—find them?”

“Are you kidding me?” Jade says. “They were just _stolen_. Maybe we can catch up with the thief after we’re out of here, but we have to get out of here first.”

“No, but—what if they catch the thief? Then the Aegises will be in the committee’s hands—”

“Are you suggesting we stay _here_?”

“If my children are still here—”

Jade gets to his feet. “I will not sacrifice my life for them, Myyah, but if you desire to, be my guest,” he tells her, cold. “I have to go find Mythra before they shut this place down completely. The rendezvous point is still at the west exit, if you change your mind about your foolishness and decide to come with. We won’t wait for you.”

“Fine,” Myyah says. She shudders, briefly, so full with indecision and emotion she feels about ready to burst. She finishes buttoning her shirt. Wonders if maybe she should have at least tried to clean off _some_ of the blood, first. Wonders, exactly, how she’s meant to find out if they caught the thief or not.

Wonders if she can forgive herself for leaving her children behind, if they did.

Knows that she can’t.

“I’m staying,” she tells Jade, somewhat surprised to see he hasn’t left yet. “I have to save them— _somehow,_ I have to. I have to try.”

“By all means,” Jade answers, sounding much like he doesn’t think she’ll get away with it.

Myyah sighs. She doesn’t begrudge him his doubt, though. She isn’t sure she’ll manage it, either. The important thing is that she _tries._ And even being trapped here while knowing her children were taken away from Tethe’alla’s plans would be enough.

And as for Jade not helping her? Well, she cannot begrudge him his freedom, either. He deserves that. They all do.

“Jade,” she calls, before he gets to the door.

“Hmm?” he asks, pausing for her. He looks exasperated, a little fidgety, but he _does_ pause.

“Where… will you go? Once you’re away from here.”

Jade thinks about it for a moment.

“I don’t know,” he admits, finally. He’s smiling, though. “But… I suppose I can go wherever I want.” He reaches for the doorknob, pulls the door open. “Goodbye, Myyah,” he says.

“Goodbye, Jade,” she answers in kind.

She leaves a second after he does. Time to find out where her children went.

\- - -

Where Jade wants to go, right now, is easy.

The door to core crystal distribution is unlocked, despite it still being well before dawn. That makes Jade worry, just for a moment, but the obvious answer presents herself when he opens the door. The clerk sits at the desk, and when she sees Jade, she waves at him.

A core crystal sits on the desk next to a small stack of paper, no more than three or four pages.

The clerk seems to study Jade, but honestly Jade’s eyes gravitate towards the core crystal, pulsing rhythmically with the same teal that flowed through Mythra’s veins. Jade takes a few steps towards it before he’s conscious of the effort, then catches himself.

The clerk laughs, then pushes the stack of papers towards him. “Here, stab these.”

Jade does. It’s only after that his spear has bisected the paperwork that he thinks to ask: “Why?” His mind is unfortunately more tunnel-visioned than he would like it to be, but he feels—fine, otherwise. He still feels fine.

“Without those we’ll have no record of a blade named Mythra ever existing in the system,” the clerk declares, brightly. Ah. That isn’t so bad, then.

Jade should probably ask her why she’s so eager to help him. Instead he dismisses his spear and reaches for the core crystal.

It’s Mythra’s, without a doubt. The shape of her light burns at his fingertips, so familiar he couldn’t possibly mistake it.

She pings him.

Jade doesn’t think. He simply pings back.

Mythra’s ether floods him, bright and powerful, solar flares bursting in his chest. The emotion bleed sings first wary, then confused, then understanding, then relieved. It’s fast and loud, thunderous in Jade’s head. By the time the light has settled, Mythra has thrown her arms around Jade, wrapping him in a hug.

Jade doesn’t respond right away, stuck with a spinning mind and a mouth that doesn’t want to work. Mythra is solid and warm, and _here._ Architect, she is _here_ , she is so _loudly_ here. The resonance sings in ways he is not used to. He takes long enough to respond that Mythra shifts, a deliberate movement to press her ear up against his chest.

Her understanding-relief-concern overwhelms him, and Jade continues to forget to breathe.

“Oh thank _fuck,_ ” Mythra says, weighty and fond. The sensation in Jade’s core is warm but he’s not quite sure what to do with how strongly he feels the fondness.

Mythra lets go of him and takes a step back, looking him up and down. Slowly, that fondness turns sour, cold horror bubbling up.

“You… do remember me, right?” she asks.

“Oh, trust me, I couldn’t forget you if I tried,” Jade answers, without missing a beat. The usual bad taste left that joking about his memories leaves in his mouth is instantly drowned by Mythra’s second flare of relief and his own burning delight that he can _never be made to forget anything again._ He cracks a smile at Mythra, crooked. “It’s good to see you, Mythra.”

“Wow, get a room?” the clerk interjects before Mythra can reply, ruining a perfectly good moment. “Like, congrats on having your girlfriend back—”

“I’m sorry his _what_ ,” Mythra says, in one breath. The incredulous surprise-disgust hits the emotion bleed, instantly—Jade’s still not sure what to do with the strength of it, but finds his mood marginally lifted to see her reaction is about what he predicted from her. She sends a look first at the clerk, then at him. “What did you _do_?”

Jade sighs. “I came to check on your core crystal, the once,” he protests.

“It was at least five times,” the clerk interjects.

Mythra squints, like she’s not sure which to believe.

“I counted no more than three,” Jade admits, with a sigh.

The clerk hums like he’s still underselling it, and Jade very deliberately does not think about how many times he ended up here in the fog of his grief without realizing it—It simply doesn’t matter now.

“ _Girlfriend_ ,” Mythra repeats, like the word is some kind of bug that crawled into her mouth. And then, emphatically: “ _Ew._ ”

“My feelings on the matter exactly,” Jade echoes. And then before the clerk can decide to be any more obnoxious, he presses on with: “Now let’s get out of here before we lose our chance.”

“Oh, right,” Mythra says. Embarrassment briefly touches the emotion bleed, and she squints towards a window. “Looks like a lot of commotion out there. What the hell’s going on—”

Jade holds up a hand to interrupt her, then sends a glare at the desk clerk. She rolls her eyes and flaps a hand at him.

“Don’t worry, I’ve been in my room this whole time trying to sleep through the racket, thinking _I don’t get paid enough to leave this room_ ,” she says, like she’s practiced. “And since the door will be locked in the morning, and Mythra no longer exists in our records, you’re in the clear.”

Jade’s satisfaction slides towards… something else he doesn’t know how to define, other than he’s suddenly starkly aware of just how much this woman has done for him. He thinks maybe he should thank her. Instead he says, “It was nice not seeing you, then,” and makes for the door.

He feels more than sees Mythra follow after him. The resonance sings like bells in his mind, light and clear.

\- - -

It’s nice, being alive again.

It’s also weird.

Not… not the being alive thing. That’s fine. But the disconnect that Mythra feels—She has no idea how long it’s been, how much time has passed. Maybe it’s a lot, given the weather?? She doesn’t know. Adrenaline makes her jittery, the echo of Jade’s spear ( _once again_ ) buried in her stomach much fresher than she’d like it to be. And it’s weird—the idea of Citan being dead, without her getting to see him die. It sits in her mouth like a sore tooth, an ache she’d be better off ignoring but can’t seem to reconcile—

“Can’t believe you didn’t save any murder for me,” she complains to Jade, walking in stride with him through the snow. She’s too worked up to really feel the cold, but she’s extremely grateful Jade seems to be clearing the snow before them enough for her to walk through. She gently slugs Jade in the arm, just for good measure.

Jade takes the slug without a blink and shrugs, one handed. “I’m dreadfully sorry, but I just couldn’t restrain myself any longer,” he tells her, in the exact kind of tone which means it’s just for show and unfortunately, _unfortunately_ that makes her fond. He’s grinning down at her wider than she thinks she’s ever seen him grin, though, so maybe she’ll just have to forgive him.

“Whatever,” Mythra says, letting it go. At least Jade’s happiness slides along the emotion bleed to her— _normal_ and _bright_ and _not at all dampened by Citan’s fucking apathy._ She’d almost do a dance for joy if they weren’t, uh, in the middle of an escape attempt. Mythra assumes that’s what this is. “At least he’s gone—we’re getting out of here too, right?”

“Correct. Your parents are waiting.”

“Oh!” That improves her mood considerably. “That’s right, I meant to ask—Galea’s fine, right?”

Confusion touches the emotion bleed, so clear that Mythra finds herself grinning just for the sensation of an emotion not stifled. “What?” Jade says. “Why wouldn’t—oh.” He seems to realize something that Mythra doesn’t feel like picking his brain for, giving the walking and the escaping and navigating the soldiers running past them. ( _At least no one seems to look twice at them, despite Jade just being absolutely covered in blood. Mythra almost regrets hugging him earlier._

 _Almost._ )

“Galea’s fine,” Jade tells Mythra. “So is Klaus.”

“Why’d you resonate with me then? I mean, if Galea’s fine…”

Jade hesitates for a second, then turns to flash Mythra an infuriating grin. “Weren’t you saying I needed to be more spontaneous?”

It makes her want to punch him. It makes her fond fond fond. Mythra shoves him again—still not enough to disrupt his balance, but it makes her feel better. He laughs. That also makes her feel better.

She’s about to press him for more, just to talk, just to keep her mind busy, ( _just to enjoy a little bit more of this Jade-without-Citan-choking-him_ ), but at this point Jade enters the code to open the west gate. The guard at the booth is either dead or unconscious. The way a few other guards are leaning up against the wall makes Mythra think unconscious, but she forgets all about that when they slip outside the gates— _off of base!!!_ —and Galea calls her name.

“Mom!” Mythra calls, running to her and tackling her in a hug. Galea squeezes her back, tight and real, and _oh_ did Mythra miss her mother’s hugs, _oh_ did Mythra miss being not having to fucking lie about her memories. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” Galea says, squeezing her once more and then letting go, which Mythra would protest if Klaus were not grabbing her to pull her into a hug himself.

“Sorry, Dad,” Mythra whispers, burying her face in Klaus’ shoulder. How tightly he holds her makes tears burn in her eyes. “I- I remember. I didn’t want to lie—”

“It’s okay,” he answers. “Galea told me.”

Mythra heaves a sigh of relief, and because they don’t actually have time to get _all_ of this out right now, squeezes Klaus before letting him go and taking stock of, uh, everything else. Looks like they’re just… chilling out here? Hubert is standing around, as is a blade that Mythra doesn’t recognize, except for the fact her core screams _sibling,_ and then subsequently _Alvis_. She doesn’t think to question it.

Jade opens his mouth to say something. Alvis cuts him off.

“We’re waiting on Flynn to procure a vehicle for transport.”

The emotion bleed sparks with something that’s lost under whatever the emotion of _holy-shit-I-have-a-sibling-who-didn’t-get-stolen_ is, because that’s all Mythra’s feeling, right now.

Jade recovers well enough to say: “Ah, good, I’m glad you weren’t just waiting around for us, in that case.”

“Where’s Myyah?” Hubert asks. Good question, Mythra thinks, now that she’s not completely blindsided by reuniting with her parents.

“She chose to stay,” Jade answers. “Nothing short of me slinging her over my shoulder and carrying her out would have changed her mind about that—you know how stubborn she is.”

The emotion bleed is tight under the air of uncaring that Jade puts up. Mythra watches him, then watches her parents share knowing looks. Someone should probably ask why Myyah chose to stay at all, but to Mythra, at least, that’s not quite as important as:

“Where’s Anna?” Mythra asks, a knot of worry tying itself in her throat even though she should definitely wait for an answer before fearing the worst.

“Already out,” Jade assures her. “The opportunity presented itself—months ago.” There’s a slight stutter over the way he says _months_ that makes Mythra worry for different reasons, but not quite as strongly. She breathes her relief.

“Citan’s dead?” Hubert asks.

Mythra only wishes when Jade answers with “Of course he is, who do you take me for,” it actually seemed to stick to her core.

( _Oh well. Plenty of time to unpack that later._

 _…way later._ )

“How are you?” Hubert presses.

“No ill side-effects as of yet,” Jade answers, smug. “In fact, I seem to have had a boost in power.”

He gestures idly at the falling snow. Mythra thinks _no way,_ but swallows it because the way Hubert’s eyes bug out for half a second is not something she wants to ruin. Unfortunately Hubert recovers before long, and flicks his glasses up his nose, annoyed.

“Of _course_ the snow is your fault, I should have known,” he complains.

Jade smiles, wide and infuriatingly smug. Mythra would be mad, but she’s too busy drinking in how clearly she can feel him emote, and also when asked to pick a side between Jade and anyone else on something trivial like this would pick Jade every time. So.

“Hell yeah, power boost,” Mythra says, and in a moment of beautiful, singing resonance, she holds up a hand for Jade to high-five and he does without even looking at her.

And then: “Ah, our ride is here,” Alvis says, a second or so before Flynn pulls up in a jeep.

\- - -

They leave without a hitch.

It almost doesn’t feel real.

\- - -

“The twins,” Galea says, suddenly.

They have been driving for a few hours, now, their tracks covered by a snowstorm that Jade has directed behind them, leaving the road ahead as clear as it can be this time of winter. There are probably still hours of drive to go, but Galea turns around in her seat next to Hubert to look into the bed of the jeep, where Klaus and Alvis and Jade and Mythra sit haphazardly due to the lack of proper seats.

“Alvis, you know where they are, don’t you,” she insists, locking eyes with her son. “That’s—that has to be within the scope of your Foresight.”

“Just because I can see the future does not mean I know everything,” Alvis counters. Mythra shoots him a look across the way.

( _but her jealousy over her younger brother’s Apparently Better Foresight was something she did her best to bury about an hour ago_ )

“But _do_ you know where your siblings are?” Klaus asks, and Galea shares with him the smile of conspirators in the same crime. She notes, very distinctly, how Mythra sits up from how she was leaning against Jade at the word _siblings._

“Even if I did,” Alvis says, dodging the question, “it wouldn’t matter. The path my brother is on must not be interrupted. Frankly, neither should ours.”

“Are you saying you don’t _want_ to find them?” Mythra asks, leaning towards her brother, a challenge in her posture as well as her tone.

“I’m saying that the universe is about to release a breath it has been holding for several hundred years, and unless we wish to kill that breath and the universe along with it, we are better off playing our parts.” Alvis’ reply is light despite the weight of his words. At this point, he has all eyes on him—minus Flynn, who has to keep his eyes on the road lest he crash the jeep—though he seems not to notice. “Rest assured the twins will both find good drivers outside of the Tethe’allan military before long.”

“All that talk about fate and the universe aside,” Jade says, his tone clearly aiming for his usual levity but landing slightly left of it, “I would rather not throw away my freedom only hours after buying it.”

Mythra turns to him, but relents before she even starts an argument. “There is always later,” she says. “After things settle down. We can try then.”

“It won’t turn out how you think it will,” Alvis warns.

“And why should I trust _your_ Foresight? It’s not like mine’s ever been any good.”

“The scope of mine is much greater than the scope of yours, Mythra.”

“Oh shut up.”

“Love you too.”

Galea turns her eyes back to the road.

\- - -

After several more hours of driving, they finally stop for a break. The intention is to stretch their legs, figure out food, and in Jade’s case: change his clothes to something slightly less bloodstained. He’d already ditched his outer coat and gloves (the cold didn’t bother him, after all) but that only resolved some of his problem. Time to deal with the rest that he can without a shower.

As he rummages through his bag for clothes, he runs his hands over the resonance in his mind once again—he can’t help it, can’t help checking just in case. Just in case what, he wonders. Citan didn’t die? Humans don’t typically survive their heart being removed, and the fact said heart still beats in his chest is proof enough that Jade didn’t imagine the whole…

His thoughts derail as he finds a book he didn’t pack in his bag.

“Galea?” he asks, lifting his head to find her. She moves around the jeep so she can talk to him, hugging her coat close for warmth. “What is one of your books doing in my bag?”

“Oh,” Galea says, with bright understanding and delight. “It’s your book now.”

“Pardon?”

“It’s a gift!”

A gift. Jade looks back down at it—something he thinks he remembers telling Galea he’d consider reading, if only he could ever find the time. He supposes he has time now. And what a strange thing, the endlessness of the time he has before him.

But it’s not just the time, the luxury to indulge in something for fun, even though both those things are making Jade’s core whirr with emotions he can’t quite pin down. No, no, it’s more than that, because this is a _gift._ A gift, because he has nothing else. A gift, because…

He feels unsteady, his mind swaying though his body doesn’t exactly move. He’s bolstered up immediately by Mythra’s concern singing in his mind—which is itself something he is wholly unused to and not sure what to do with! The loudness of it! The intensity of its warmth, nearly brighter than he can handle! He does not miss the yawning chasm of apathy that dulled his thoughts before but he still—

He pushes it out of his mind and clamps it down as well as he can, and then he digs further into his bag to see what else they left him.

It’s not a lot. Two books, total, a coffee mug in Klaus’ favorite color, some dozen photographs bound by a string.

It’s not a lot at all.

It is somehow nearly too much.

That swaying feeling, again. Jade squeezes his eyes shut.

“Unless you don’t want it…?” Galea asks, quietly.

Well he certainly doesn’t _need_ it, but that’s—that’s another beast entirely that he doesn’t know how to touch, the line between wanting and needing, needing and wanting. He tucks that away for later, too.

“I- appreciate it,” he says, with more difficulty than he’ll admit to. He wants to tease, deflect, but there are no words in his mind to do so with, the feelings in his chest much too fleeting and profound for him to grasp let alone ferry to his tongue.

Galea smiles at him, one more time, such genuine fondness in the crinkle of her eyes that Jade cannot fathom he deserves, but that thought is lost under her voice as it shapes the words “You’re welcome,” and Galea leaves him be.

To change, yes. He was changing his clothes. He gets on that.

\- - -

They’ve been on the road maybe twenty minutes when Hubert—having traded places with Alvis to sit in the bed of the jeep—locks eyes with Jade, who hasn’t moved.

“I didn’t see you eat.”

“Because I didn’t?” Jade answers, somewhat perplexed. “I seem to recall that blades—”

“You’re not a blade anymore,” Hubert interjects.

It’s true, but somehow it stings. Jade’s newly acquired heart beats in his chest, rhythmic and constant, a sensation he’s still getting used to. He really isn’t a blade, anymore.

“And I don’t know anything about flesh eaters,” Hubert continues, “but I know a human heart cannot possibly be sustained on ether alone. Galea, would you mind?” He gestures to the pile of their bags, and Galea—who swapped places with Klaus ( _who then swapped places with Flynn_ )—gladly digs around for some rations.

“I cannot believe,” Jade says, valiantly glaring at Galea (who ignores him) and then sending a sidelong look at Mythra (who doesn’t look impressed, the emotion bleed humming with mirth), “the two of you are just going to sit here and let him bully me like this. After all I’ve done.”

“He’s right, is the thing,” Mythra says. “Besides, what if you died of starvation, in the middle of the trip—”

“I would not.”

“—and then _I_ die, _again_ —would you do that to me, Jade? Would you?”

Jade rolls his eyes. Hubert thrusts food into his hands.

“Ganging up on me!” Jade insists, but he takes the food.

\- - -

When they stop again, Klaus finds Galea, leaning up against the front of the jeep—probably to seep whatever warmth she can from the engine. He steals her idea and joins her.

“Did we do the right thing?” she asks, quiet.

“We did what we could,” Klaus answers.

“It wasn’t enough,” she protests.

“No,” he agrees. “It wasn’t.”

It’s stopped snowing by now, Jade’s ether spent and the weather having evened out on its own, but they still stand in several inches. Not even his atrophied-from-disuse boots could keep Klaus in the car, though. He looks up at the cloudy sky, infinitely far away from him, and he breathes.

“Can’t remember the last time I saw snow,” he says.

Galea laughs, breathless, relieved.

“Me neither.”

\- - -

When night comes around, they sleep in shifts, in favor of covering more ground and also keeping the heater running without wasting the energy. If any of the blades could drive the jeep, this wouldn’t be a problem, but Klaus and Galea hard veto Mythra or Alvis attempting, and Hubert isn’t comfortable attempting to navigate this much snow in the dead of night. Galea takes the first shift, with Alvis to keep her company and help her watch the road. Mythra _could_ summon light to illuminate their path, but that would probably draw more attention than they want, and besides…

Jade, without anyone hassling him, curled up to sleep with his head and Mythra’s lap, so. She’s not going anywhere any time soon.

Adrenaline crash, she figures, with a side of the exhaustion that comes with outputting _as much ether as it took him to control a snowstorm._ Whatever it was, it knocked him out completely, which is probably good, because he _can’t_ be comfortable. The bed of this jeep was not exactly made for three fully-grown men to sleep in, and yet here they are, with Mythra under Jade and Hubert squashed between Klaus and Flynn. Mythra’d tease him for it, except she sees the gentle look he sends to Flynn when he thinks she isn’t looking and. Yeah. Yeah, okay.

“Is he alright?” Hubert asks, voice low. After a second, Mythra realizes he means Jade.

“I think so,” she answers. “The resonance would have pinged me if something was seriously wrong with him.”

“That’s true.”

“Besides, the biggest concern was it nerfing his ether output, right?” Mythra says. Hubert hums like he has no idea. Mythra remembers Jade saying so, though, and she trusts him. “Clearly that’s not a problem.”

“Clearly.” There’s an air of annoyance in Hubert’s tone, but concern is written plain on his face. “Just keep an eye on him, will you?”

“You don’t have to ask.”

Hubert scoffs—all bluster—and shifts, eyes leaving Mythra’s face in a clear signal that the conversation is over. His fingers finding Flynn’s wrist. Mythra turns away, because she’s not fucking rude.

She runs her fingers through Jade’s hair instead, hoping to stave off her boredom and because Jade’s definitely too asleep for it to wake him. She breathes, long and slow, taking the sensation of the jeep rumbling beneath her, the weight of Jade’s head on her legs, _everything, all of it,_ and committing it to her bones, wishing herself to properly appreciate the fact this is real.

This is real, even though it feels like it isn’t. It’s over, even if she didn’t get to see it end. Such a stupid, stupid thing, that. She wanted to be there when it ended—wanted to be there to slam her sword through Citan’s fucking skull—but he’s dead and—

Her thoughts interrupt as her fingers hit not a tangle in Jade’s hair, but… oh.

That’s the braid she put behind his ear. She knows, because to her it was like it happened only a few days ago.

( _It’s been months, in reality. How strange, to die in summer and wake in winter? How nauseating, to consider not just the time she lost, but also the time Jade spent_ alone.)

Anyway. The braid’s kind of shit now—he must have redone it himself several times, which makes Mythra’s core burn with fondness—so Mythra gently untangles it and starts redoing it.

It’s… not a lot, but somehow, in that moment, it’s everything. The emotion bleed hums, quiet but _clear._

They’re here. They’re alive. They’re free.

It’s over. It’s over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL FOLKS! WE DID IT!!!!!! thanks for coming with me on this wild ride. i wish i had a handy notes doc sitting around like i've had with previous ywkon installments but god i just kept putting off the notes doc for this one LMFAO... i want to do it tho so maybe .... Some day. keep an eye on this space.
> 
> in the mean time check out  
> > [SONGS TO MURDER YOUR DRIVER TO, A YWKON JADE FANMIX](https://rarsneezes.dreamwidth.org/22596.html), which is still probably one of the best mixes i have ever made.  
> > [the tag for this fic on my tumblr](https://rarmaster.tumblr.com/tagged/24.8) ft softer worlds edits, aesthetic posts, misc facts and musings, and, the one fanart i did  
> > [a deleted flynn scene](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17273969/chapters/69013179)
> 
> NOW KEEP AN EYE OUT, COMING TO AN AO3 NEAR YOU EVENTUALLY  
> BIGGER! BADDER! SOUPIER!!!  
>  **SOUP 2: MINESTRONE**  
>  _~chicken soup for the traumatized blade's soul~_

**Author's Note:**

>  **SOUP 2 OUT NOW** : [read here!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29325354/chapters/72021186%22)
> 
> oh yeah if you read this first and are going to be mad about confusing Anna things that won't be revealed until several installments in when starting at the begining, [here's a short list](https://rarsneezes.dreamwidth.org/39711.html#cutid2) (two items) of where to hop next


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